THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AN  INTIMATE  BIOGRAPHY 


THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

AN    INTIMATE 
BIOGRAPHY 

BY 
WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
fiitoerjfitie  pretfs  Cambridge 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


TO 

EDITH  KERMIT  ROOSEVELT 


PREFACE 

IN  finishing  the  correction  of  the  last  proofs  of  this 
sketch,  I  perceive  that  some  of  those  who  read  it 
may  suppose  that  I  planned  to  write  a  deliberate 
eulogy  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  This  is  not  true.  I 
knew  him  for  forty  years,  but  I  never  followed  his 
political  leadership.  Our  political  differences,  how 
ever,  never  lessened  our  personal  friendship.  Some 
times  long  intervals  elapsed  between  our  meetings, 
but  when  we  met  it  was  always  with  the  same  inti 
macy,  and  when  we  wrote  it  was  with  the  same  can 
dor.  I  count  it  fortunate  for  me  that  during  the  last 
ten  years  of  his  life,  I  was  thrown  more  with  Roose 
velt  than  during  all  the  earlier  period;  and  so  I  was 
able  to  observe  him,  to  know  his  motives,  and  to 
study  his  character  during  the  chief  crises  of  his  later 
career,  when  what  he  thought  and  did  became  an 
integral  part  of  the  development  of  the  United  States. 
After  the  outbreak  of  the  World  War,  in  1914,  he 
and  I  thought  alike,  and  if  I  mistake  not,  this  closing 
phase  of  his  life  will  come  more  and  more  to  be  re 
vered  by  his  countrymen  as  an  example  of  the  high 
est  patriotism  and  courage.  Regardless  of  popular 
lukewarmness  at  the  start,  and  of  persistent  offi 
cial  thwarting  throughout,  he  roused  the  conscience 


viii  PREFACE 

of  the  nation  to  a  sense  of  its  duty  and  of  its  honor. 
What  gratitude  can  repay  one  who  rouses  the  con 
science  of  a  nation?  Roosevelt  sacrificed  his  life  for 
patriotism  as  surely  as  if  he  had  died  leading  a  charge 
in  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 

The  Great  War  has  thrown  all  that  went  before  it 
out  of  perspective.  We  can  never  see  the  events  of 
the  preceding  half-century  in  the  same  light  in 
which  we  saw  them  when  they  were  fresh.  Instinc 
tively  we  appraise  them,  and  the  men  through  whom 
they  came  to  pass,  by  their  relation  to  the  catas 
trophe.  Did  they  lead  up  to  it  consciously  or  un 
consciously?  And  as  we  judge  the  outcome  of  the 
war,  our  views  of  men  take  on  changed  complexions. 
The  war,  as  it  appears  now,  was  the  culmination  of 
three  different  world-movements;  it  destroyed  the 
attempt  of  German  Imperialism  to  conquer  the  world 
and  to  rivet  upon  it  a  Prussian  military  despotism. 
Next,  it  set  up  Democracy  as  the  ideal  for  all  peo 
ples  to  live  by.  Finally,  it  revealed  that  the  eco 
nomic,  industrial,  social,  and  moral  concerns  of  men 
are  deeper  than  the  political. 

When  I  came  to  review  Roosevelt's  career  con 
secutively,  for  the  purpose  of  this  biography,  I  saw 
that  many  of  his  acts  and  policies,  which  had  been 
misunderstood  or  misjudged  at  the  time,  were  all 
the  inevitable  expressions  of  the  principle  which 


PREFACE  ix 

was  the  master-motive  of  his  life.  What  we  had  im 
agined  to  be  shrewd  devices  for  winning  a  partisan 
advantage,  or  for  overthrowing  a  political  adversary, 
or  for  gratifying  his  personal  ambition,  had  a  nobler 
source.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  Roosevelt,  who 
was  a  most  adroit  politician,  did  not  employ  with 
terrific  effect  the  means  accepted  as  honorable  in 
political  fighting.  So  did  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  also, 
as  a  great  Opportunist,  was  both  a  powerful  and  a 
shrewd  political  fighter,  but  pledged  to  Righteousness. 
It  seems  now  tragic,  but  inevitable,  that  Roose 
velt,  after  beginning  and  carrying  forward  the  war 
for  the  reconciliation  between  Capital  and  Labor, 
should  have  been  sacrificed  by  the  Republican 
Machine,  for  that  Machine  was  a  special  organ  of 
Capital,  by  which  Capital  made  and  administered  the 
laws  of  the  States  and  of  the  Nation.  But  Roosevelt's 
struggle  was  not  in  vain;  before  he  died,  many  of 
those  who  worked  for  his  downfall  in  1912  were  look 
ing  up  to  him  as  the  natural  leader  of  the  country, 
in  the  new  dangers  which  encompassed  it.  "Had  he 
lived,"  said  a  very  eminent  man  who  had  done  more 
than  any  other  to  defeat  him,  "he  would  have  been 
the  unanimous  candidate  of  the  Republicans  in  1920." 
Time  brings  its  revenges  swiftly.  As  I  write  these 
lines,  it  is  not  Capital,  but  overweening  Labor  which 
makes  its  truculent  demands  on  the  Administration 


x  PREFACE 

at  Washington,  which  it  has  already  intimidated. 
Well  may  we  exclaim,  "Oh,  for  the  courage  of 
Roosevelt!"  And  whenever  the  country  shall  be  in 
great  anxiety  or  in  direct  peril  from  the  cowardice 
of  those  who  have  sworn  to  defend  its  welfare  and 
its  integrity,  that  cry  shall  rise  to  the  lips  of  true 
Americans. 

Although  I  have  purposely  brought  out  what  I 
believe  to  be  the  most  significant  parts  of  Roosevelt's 
character  and  public  life,  I  have  not  wished  to  be  un 
critical.  I  have  suppressed  nothing.  Fortunately  for 
his  friends,  the  two  libel  suits  which  he  went  through 
in  his  later  years,  subjected  him  to  a  microscopic 
scrutiny,  both  as  to  his  personal  and  his  political 
life.  All  the  efforts  of  very  able  lawyers,  and  of 
clever  and  unscrupulous  enemies  to  undermine  him, 
failed;  and  henceforth  his  advocates  may  rest  on  the 
verdicts  given  by  two  separate  courts. 

As  for  the  great  political  acts  of  his  official  career, 
Time  has  forestalled  eulogy.  Does  any  one  now  de 
fend  selling  liquor  to  children  and  converting  them 
into  precocious  drunkards?  Does  any  one  defend 
sweat-shops,  or  the  manufacture  of  cigars  under 
worse  than  unsanitary  conditions?  Which  of  the 
packers,  who  protested  against  the  Meat  Inspection 
Bill,  would  care  to  have  his  name  made  public;  and 
which  of  the  lawyers  and  of  the  accomplices  in  the 


PREFACE  xi 

lobby  and  in  Congress  would  care  to  have  it  known 
that  he  used  every  means,  fair  and  foul,  to  prevent 
depriving  the  packers  of  the  privilege  of  canning  bad 
meat  for  Americans,  although  foreigners  insisted  that 
the  canned  meat  which  they  bought  should  be  whole 
some  and  inspected?  Does  any  American  now  doubt 
the  wisdom  and  justice  of  conserving  the  natural  re 
sources,  of  saving  our  forests  and  our  mineral  sup 
plies,  and  of  controlling  the  watershed  from  which 
flows  the  water-supply  of  entire  States? 

These  things  are  no  longer  in  the  field  of  debate. 
They  are  accepted  just  as  the  railroad  and  the  tele 
graph  are  accepted.  But  each  in  its  time  was  a  novelty, 
a  reform,  and  to  secure  its  acceptance  by  the  Ameri 
can  people  and  its  sanction  in  the  statute  book, 
required  the  zeal,  the  energy,  the  courage  of  one 
man  -  -  Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  had  many  helpers, 
but  he  was  the  indispensable  backer  and  accom- 
plisher.  When,  therefore,  I  have  commended  him  for 
these  great  achievements,  I  have  but  echoed  what  is 
now  common  opinion. 

A  contemporary  can  never  judge  as  the  historian 
a  hundred  years  after  the  fact  judges,  but  the  con 
temporary  view  has  also  its  place,  and  it  may  be 
really  nearer  to  the  living  truth  than  is  the  conclu 
sion  formed  when  the  past  is  cold  and  remote  and 
the  actors  are  dead  long  ago.  So  a  friend's  outlined 


xii  PREFACE 

portrait,  though  obviously  not  impartial,  must  be 
nearer  the  truth  than  an  enemy's  can  be  --for  the 
enemy  is  not  impartial  either.  We  have  fallen  too 
much  into  the  habit  of  imagining  that  only  hostile 
critics  tell  the  truth. 

I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude  to  many  persons 
who  have  assisted  me  in  my  work.  First  of  all,  to 
Mrs.  Roosevelt,  for  permission  to  use  various  letters. 
Next,  to  President  Roosevelt's  sisters,  Mrs.  William 
S.  Cowles  and  Mrs.  Douglas  Robinson,  for  invaluable 
information.  Equally  kind  have  been  many  of  Roose 
velt's  associates  in  Government  and  in  political 
affairs:  President  William  H.  Taft,  former  Secre 
tary  of  War;  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge;  Senator 
Elihu  Root  and  Colonel  Robert  Bacon,  former 
Secretaries  of  State;  Hon.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte, 
former  Attorney-General;  Hon.  George  B.  Cortel- 
you,  former  Secretary  of  the  Interior;  Hon.  Gifford 
Pinchot,  of  the  National  Forest  Service;  Hon.  James 
R.  Garfield,  former  Commissioner  of  Commerce. 

Also  to  Lord  Bryce  and  the  late  Sir  Cecil  Spring- 
Rice,  British  Ambassadors  at  Washington;  to  Hon. 
George  W.  Wickersham,  Attorney-General  under 
President  Taft;  to  Mr.  Nicholas  Roosevelt  and  Mr. 
Charles  P.  Curtis,  Jr. ;  to  Hon.  Albert  J.  Beveridge, 
ex-Senator;  to  Mr.  James  T.  Williams,  Jr.;  to  Dr. 


PREFACE  xiii 

Alexander  Lambert;  to  Hon.  James  M.  Beck;  to 
Major  George  H.  Putnam;  to  Professor  Albert 
Bushnell  Hart;  to  Hon.  Charles  S.  Bird;  to  Mrs. 
George  von  L.  Meyer  and  Mrs.  Curtis  Guild;  to 
Mr.  Hermann  Hagedorn;  to  Mr.  James  G.  King,  Jr.; 
to  Dean  William  D.  Lewis;  to  Hon.  Regis  H.  Post; 
to  Hon.  William  Phillips,  Assistant  Secretary  of 
State;  to  Mr.  Richard  Trimble;  to  Mr.  John  Wood- 
bury;  to  Govt  Charles  E.  Hughes;  to  Mr.  Louis  A. 
Coolidge;  to  Hon.  F.  D.  Roosevelt,  Assistant  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy;  to  Judge  Robert  Grant;  to  Mr. 
James  Ford  Rhodes;  to  Hon.  W.  Cameron  Forbes. 

I  am  under  especial  obligation  to  Hon.  Charles 
G.  Washburn,  ex-Congressman,  whose  book,  "  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt:  The  Logic  of  his  Career,"  I  have 
consulted  freely  and  commend  as  the  best  analysis 
I  have  seen  of  Roosevelt's  political  character.  I  wish 
also  to  thank  the  publishers  and  authors  of  books 
by  or  about  Roosevelt  for  permission  to  use  their 
works.  These  are  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. ;  G.  P.  Put 
nam's  Sons;  The  Outlook  Co.;  The  Macmillan  Co. 

To  Mr.  Ferris  Greenslet,  whose  fine  critical  taste 
I  have  often  drawn  upon;  and  Mr.  George  B.  Ives, 
who  has  prepared  the  Index;  and  to  Miss  Alice 
Wyman,  my  secretary,  my  obligation  is  profound. 

W.  R.  T. 

August  10,  1919 


CONTENTS 

I.  ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  I 

II.  BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  25 

III.  AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  46 

IV.  NATURE  THE  HEALER  56 
V.  BACK  TO  THE  EAST  AND  LITERATURE  69 

VI.  APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS  83 

VII.  THE  ROUGH  RIDER  109 
VIII.  GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  —  VICE-PRESIDENT      131 

^IX.  PRESIDENT  154 
X.  THE  WORLD  WHICH  ROOSEVELT  CONFRONTED    158^ 

.  ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY  Gjo^^ 

XII.  THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME  191 

XIII.  THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  201 

XIV.  THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER  214  ^ 
XV.  ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  231 

XVI.  THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION  242  , 

XVII.  ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  255 

XVIII.  HITS  AND  MISSES  281 

XIX.  CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  303 

XX.  WORLD  HONORS  318  S 

XXI.  WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY?  332 

XXII.  THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  356  >/ 

XXIII.  THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  389 

XXIV.  PROMETHEUS  BOUND  402 
XXV.  PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  426 

INDEX  •  457 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  Photogravure  Frontispiece 

Photograph  by  Pirie  Macdonald 

ROOSEVELT  IN  1880,  AS  A  SENIOR  AT  HARVARD  COLLEGE    20 
ROOSEVELT  THE  HUNTER,  1905  80 

ROOSEVELT  AS  A  ROUGH  RIDER  124 

WITH  GENERAL  JOSEPH  WHEELER  AND  LEONARD  WOOD 

1898  128 

IN  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904  152 

PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  192 

WITH  THE  RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  DELEGATES  ON 
BOARD  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  YACHT  MAYFLOWER, 
AUGUST  5,  1905  226 

SAGAMORE  HILL  256 

THE  LAST  CABINET  MEETING  AT  WHICH  ROOSEVELT 
PRESIDED  304 

ROOSEVELT  AT  SAGAMORE  HILL  318 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  LETTER  OF  ROOSEVELT'S  WRITTEN  AT 
THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1916  424 

A  FAMILY  GROUP  44» 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
AN  INTIMATE  BIOGRAPHY 


ABBREVIATIONS 

A utoUography  -=  "Theodore  Roosevelt:  An  Autobiography."    Mac- 
millan  Co.;  New  York,  1914. 

%*  The  titles  of  other  books  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  are  given  without  his 
name  as  they  occur  in  the  footnotes. 

Leupp=  Francis  E.  Leupp:  "The  Man  Roosevelt."  D.  Appleton 

&  Co.;  New  York,  1904. 
Lewis  =  Wm.  Draper  Lewis:  "  The  Life  of  Theodore  Roosevelt." 

John  C.  Winston  Co.;  Philadelphia,  1919. 
Morgan  =  James  Morgan:  "  Theodore  Roosevelt;  The  Boy  and  the 

Man."    Macmillan  Co.,  new  ed.,  1919. 

Ogg  =  Frederic  A. Ogg:  "National  Progress,  1907-1917."  Amer 
ican  Nation  Series.  Harper  &  Bros.;  New  York,  1918. 
Riis  =  Jacob  A.   Riis:   "Theodore  Roosevelt;    the  Citizen." 

Outlook  Co.;  New  York,  1904. 

Washburn  =  Charles  G.  Washburn:  "  Theodore  Roosevelt;  The  Logic 
of  His  Career."  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  1916. 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

CHAPTER  I 

ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH 

NOTHING  better  illustrates  the  elasticity  of 
American  democratic  life  than  the  fact  that 
within  a  span  of  forty  years  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Theodore  Roosevelt  were  Presidents  of  the  United 
States.  Two  men  more  unlike  in  origin,  in  training, 
and  in  opportunity,  could  hardly  be  found. 

Lincoln  came  from  an  incompetent  Kentuckian 
father,  a  pioneer  without  the  pioneer's  spirit  of 
enterprise  and  push;  he  lacked  schooling;  he  had 
barely  the  necessaries  of  life  measured  even  by  the 
standards  of  the  Border;  his  companions  were  rough 
frontier  wastrels,  many  of  whom  had  either  been,  or 
might  easily  become,  ruffians.  The  books  on  which 
he  fed  his  young  mind  were  very  few,  not  more  than 
five  or  six,  but  they  were  the  best.  And  yet  in  spite 
of  these  handicaps,  Abraham  Lincoln  rose  to  be  the 
leader  and  example  of  the  American  Nation  during 
its  most  perilous  crisis,  and  the  ideal  Democrat  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  ^ }  }\\  I  \;  (j  \ 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  on  the  contrary^:  was:  born: 


2  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

in  New  York  City,  enjoyed  every  advantage  in  edu 
cation  and  training;  his  family  had  been  for  many 
generations  respected  in  the  city;  his  father  was 
cultivated  and  had  distinction  as  a  citizen,  who  de 
voted  his  wealth  and  his  energies  to  serving  his 
fellow  men.  But,  just  as  incredible  adversity  could 
not  crush  Abraham  Lincoln,  so  lavish  prosperity 
could  not  keep  down  or  spoil  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

In  his  "Autobiography"  he  tells  us  that  "about 
1644  his  ancestor,  ClaesMartensen  van  Roosevelt, 
came  to  New  Amsterdam  as  a  '  settler '  —  the  euphe 
mistic  name  for  an  immigrant  who  came  over  in  the 
steerage  of  a  sailing  ship  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
From  that  time  for  the  next  seven  generations  from 
father  to  son  every  one  of  us  was  born  on  Manhat 
tan  Island."  1  For  over  a  hundred  years  the  Roose- 
velts  continued  to  be  typical  Dutch  burghers  in  a 
hard-working,  God-fearing,  stolid  Dutch  way,  each 
leaving  to  his  son  a  little  more  than  he  had  inherited. 
During  the  Revolution,  some  of  the  family  were  in 
the  Continental  Army,  but  they  won  no  high  honors, 
and  some  of  them  sat  in  the  Congresses  of  that  gen 
eration  —  sat,  and  were  honest,  but  did  not  shine. 
Theodore's  great-grandfather  seems  to  have  amassed 
was  regarded  in  those  days  as  a  large  fortune. 

.*»•«;  1  Autobiography,  i. 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  3 

His  grandfather,  Cornelius  Van  Schaack  Roosevelt, 
a  glass  importer  and  banker,  added  to  his  inherit 
ance,  but  was  more  than  a  mere  money-maker. 

His  son  Theodore,  born  in  1831,  was  the  father 
of  the  President.  Inheriting  sufficient  means  to  live 
in  great  comfort,  not  to  say  in  luxury,  he  neverthe 
less  engaged  in  business ;  but  he  had  a  high  sense  of 
the  obligation  which  wealth  lays  on  its  possessors. 
And  so,  instead  of  wasting  his  life  in  merely  heaping 
up  dollars,  he  dedicated  it  to  spending  wisely  and 
generously  those  which  he  had.  There  was  nothing 
puritanical,  however,  in  his  way  of  living.  He  en 
joyed  the  normal,  healthy  pleasures  of  his  station. 
He  drove  his  coach  and  four  and  was  counted  one 
of  the  best  whips  in  New  York.  Taking  his  paternal 
responsibilities  seriously,  he  implanted  in  his  chil 
dren  lively  respect  for  discipline  and  duty;  but  he 
kept  very  near  to  their  affection,  so  that  he  remained 
throughout  their  childhood,  and  after  they  grew  up, 
their  most  intimate  friend. 

What  finer  tribute  could  a  son  pay  than  this  which 
follows? 

My  father,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  was  the  best  man  I  ever 
knew.  He  combined  strength  and  courage  with  gentleness, 
tenderness,  and  great  unselfishness.  He  would  not  tolerate  in 
us  children  selfishness  or  cruelty,  idleness,  cowardice,  or  un- 
truthfulness.  As  we  grew  older  he  made  us  understand  that 
the  same  standard  of  clean  living  was  demanded  for  the  boys 


4  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

as  for  the  girls ;  that  what  was  wrong  in  a  woman  could  not  be 
right  in  a  man.  With  great  love  and  patience  and  the  most 
understanding  sympathy  and  consideration  he  combined  in 
sistence  on  discipline.  He  never  physically  punished  me  but 
once,  but  he  was  the  only  man  of  whom  I  was  ever  really 
afraid.1 

Thus  the  President,  writing  nearly  forty  years 
after  his  father's  death.  His  mother  was  Martha 
Bulloch,  a  member  of  an  old  Southern  family,  one 
of  her  ancestors  having  been  the  first  Governor  of 
Georgia.  During  the  Civil  War,  while  Mr.  Roosevelt 
was  busy  raising  regiments,  supporting  the  Sani 
tary  Commission,  and  doing  whatever  a  non-com 
batant  patriot  could  do  to  uphold  the  Union,  Mrs. 
Roosevelt's  heart  allegiance  went  with  the  South, 
and  to  the  end  of  her  life  she  was  never  "recon 
structed."  But  this  conflict  of  loyalties  caused  no 
discord  in  the  Roosevelt  family  circle.  Her  two  broth 
ers  served  in  the  Confederate  Navy.  One  of  them, 
James  Bulloch,  "a  veritable  Colonel  Ne.wcome," 
was  an  admiral  and  directed  the  construction  of 
the  privateer  Alabama.  The  other,  Irvine,  a  mid 
shipman  on  that  vessel,  fired  the  last  gun  in  its  fight 
with  the  Kearsarge  before  the  Alabama  sank.  After 
the  war  both  of  them  lived  in  Liverpool  and  "Uncle 
Jimmy"  became  a  rabid  Tory.  He  "was  one  of  the 
best  men  I  have  ever  known,"  writes  his  nephew 

1  Autobiography,  9,  10. 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  5 

Theodore ; ' '  and  when  I  have  sometimes  been  tempted 
to  wonder  how  good  people  can  believe  of  me  the 
unjust  and  impossible  things  they  do  believe,  I  have 
consoled  myself  by  thinking  of  Uncle  Jimmy  Bui- 
loch's  perfectly  sincere  conviction  that  Gladstone 
was  a  man  of  quite  exceptional  and  nameless  in 
famy  in  both  public  and  private  life."  1 

Theodore  Roosevelt  grew  up  to  be  not  only  a 
stanch  but  an  uncompromising  believer  in  the 
Union  Cause;  but  the  fact  that  his  parents  came 
from  the  North  and  from  the  South,  and  that,  from 
his  earliest  memory,  the  Southern  kindred  were  held 
in  affection  in  his  home,  must  have  helped  him 
towards  that  non-sectional,  all- American  point  of 
view  which  was  the  cornerstone  of  his  patriotic 
creed. 

The  Roosevelt  house  was  situated  at  No.  28  East 
Twentieth  Street,  New  York  City ,_  and  there  Theo 
dore  was  born  on  October  27,  1858.  He  passed  his 
boyhood  amid  the  most  wholesome  family  life.  Be 
sides  his  brother  Elliott  and  two  sisters,  as  his 
Uncle  Robert  lived  next  door,  there  were  cousins 
to  play  with  and  a  numerous  kindred  to  form  the 
background  of  his  young  life.  He  was,  fortunately, 
not  precocious,  for  the  infant  prodigies  of  seven, 
who  become  the  amazing  omniscients  of  twenty- 

1  Autobiography,  16. 


6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

three,  are  seldom  heard  of  at  thirty.  He  learned  very 
early  to  read,  and  his  sisters  remember  that  when 
he  was  still  in  starched  white  petticoats,  with  a  curl 
carefully  poised  on  top  of  his  head,  he  went  about 
the  house  lugging  a  thick,  heavy  volume  of  Living 
stone's  "Travels"  and  asking  some  one  to  tell  him 
about  the  "foraging  ants"  described  by  the  ex 
plorer.  At  last  his  older  sister  found  the  passage  in 
which  the  little  boy  had  mistaken  "foregoing"  for 
11  foraging."  No  wonder  that  in  his  mature  years  he 
became  an  advocate  of  reformed  spelling.  His  sense 
of  humor,  which  flashed  like  a  mountain  brook 
through  all  his  later  intercourse  and  made  it  delight 
ful,  seems  to  have  begun  with  his  infancy.  He  used  to 
say  his  prayers  at  his  mother's  knee,  and  one  even 
ing  when  he  was  out  of  sorts  with  her,  he  prayed 
the  Lord  to  bless  the  Union  Cause;  knowing  her 
Southern  preferences  he  took  this  humorous  sort  of 
vengeance  on  her.  She,  too,  had  humor  and  was 
much  amused,  but  she  warned  him  that  if  he  re 
peated  such  impropriety  at  that  solemn  moment, 
she  should  tell  his  father. 

Theodore  and  the  other  children  had  a  great 
fondness  for  pets,  and  their  aunt,  Mrs.  Robert, 
possessed  several  of  unusual  kinds  —  pheasants 
and  peacocks  which  strutted  about  the  back  yard 
and  a  monkey  which  lived  on  the  back  piazza.  They 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  7 

were  afraid  of  him,  although  they  doubtless  watched 
his  antics  with  a  fearful  joy.  From  the  accounts 
which  survive,  life  in  the  nursery  of  the  young 
Roosevelts  must  have  been  a  perpetual  play-time, 
but  through  it  all  ran  the  invisible  formative  influ 
ence  of  their  parents,  who  had  the  art  of  shaping 
the  minds  and  characters  of  the  little  people  with 
out  seeming  to  teach. 

Almost  from  infancy  Theodore  suffered  from 
asthma,  which  made  him  physically  puny,  and 
often  prevented  him  from  lying  down  when  he  went 
to  bed.  But  his  spirit  did  not  droop.  His  mental 
activity  never  wearied  and  he  poured  out  endless 
stories  to  the  delight  of  his  brother  and  sisters. 
"  My  earliest  impressions  of  my  brother  Theodore/' 
writes  his  sister,  Mrs.  Robinson,  "are  of  a  rather 
small,  patient,  suffering  little  child,  who,  in  spite  of 
his  suffering,  was  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  nurs 
ery.  .  .  .  These  stories,"  she  adds,  "almost  always 
related  to  strange  and  marvelous  animal  adven 
tures,  in  which  the  animals  were  personalities  quite 
as  vivid  as  Kipling  gave  to  the  world  a  generation 
later  in  his  '  Jungle  Books." 

Owing  to  his  delicate  health  Theodore  did  not 
attend  school,  except  for  a  little  while,  when  he 
went  to  Professor  McMullen's  Academy  on  Twen 
tieth  Street.  He  was  taught  at  home  and  he  prob- 


8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ably  got  more  from  his  reading  than  from  his  teach 
ers.  By  the  time  he  was  ten,  the  passion  for  omniv 
orous  reading  which  frequently  distinguishes  boys 
who  are  physically  handicapped,  began  in  him.  He 
devoured  Our  Young  Folks,  that  excellent  period 
ical  on  which  many  of  the  boys  and  girls  who  were 
his  contemporaries  fed.  He  loved  tales  of  travel  and 
adventure;  he  loved  Cooper's  stories,  and  especially 
books  on  natural  history. 

In  summer  the  children  spent  the  long  days  out 
of  doors  at  some  country  place,  and  there,  in  ad 
dition  to  the  pleasure  of  being  continuously  with 
nature,  they  had  the  sports  and  games  adapted  to 
their  age.  Theodore  was  already  making  collections 
of  stones  and  other  specimens  after  the  haphazard 
fashion  of  boys.  The  young  naturalist  sometimes 
met  with  unexpected  difficulties.  Once,  for  instance, 
he  found  a  litter  of  young  white  mice,  which  he  put 
in  the  ice-chest  for  safety.  His  mother  came  upon 
them,  and,  in  the  interest  of  good  housekeeping, 
she  threw  them  away.  When  Theodore  discovered 
it  he  flew  into  a  tantrum  and  protested  that  what 
hurt  him  most  was  "the  loss  to  Science!  the  loss  to 
Science!"  On  another  occasion  Science  suffered  a 
loss  of  unknown  extent  owing  to  his  obligation  to 
manners.  He  and  his  cousin  had  filled  their  pockets 
and  whatever  bags  they  had  with  specimens.  Then 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  9 

they  came  upon  two  toads,  of  a  strange  and  new 
variety.  Having  no  more  room  left,  each  boy  put 
one  of  them  on  top  of  his  head  and  clapped  down 
his  hat.  All  went  well  till  they  met  Mrs.  Hamilton 
Fish,  a  great  lady  to  whom  they  had  to  take  off  their 
hats.  Down  jumped  the  toads  and  hopped  away, 
and  Science  was  never  able  to  add  the  Bufo  Roose- 
veltianus  to  its  list  of  Hudson  Valley  reptiles. 

In  1 869  Mr.  Roosevelt  took  his  family  to  Europe 
for  a  year.  The  children  did  not  care  to  go,  and  from 
the  start  Theodore  was  homesick  and  little  inter 
ested.  Of  course,  picture  galleries  meant  nothing 
to  a  boy  of  ten,  with  a  naturalises  appetite,  and 
he  could  not  know  enough  about  history  to  be  im 
pressed  by  historic  places  and  monuments.  He 
kept  a  diary  from  which  Mr.  Hagedorn *  prints 
many  amusing  entries,  some  of  which  I  quote: 

Munich,  October.  "In  the  night  I  had  a  nightmare  dream 
ing  that  the  devil  was  carrying  me  away  and  had  collorer 
morbos  (a  sickness  that  is  not  very  dangerous)  but  Mama 
patted  me  with  her  delicate  fingers." 

Little  Conie  also  kept  a  diary:  the  next  entry  is 
from  it: 

Paris.  "I  am  so  glad  Mama  has  let  me  stay  in  the  butiful 
hotel  parlor  while  the  poor  boys  have  been  dragged  off  to  the 
orful  picture  galary." 

1  H.  Hagedorn:  The  Boy's  Life  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Harper  & 
Bros.  1918. 


io  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Now  Theodore  again: 

Paris,  November  26.  "I  stayed  in  the  house  all  day,  vary 
ing  the  day  with  brushing  my  hair,  washing  my  hands  and 
thinking  in  fact  haveing  a  verry  dull  time." 

"Nov.  27.  I  Did  the  same  thing  as  yesterday." 

Chamounix.  "I  found  several  specimens  to  keep  and  we 
went  on  the  great  glacier  called  'Mother  of  ice!": 

"We  went  to  our  cousins  school  at  Waterloo.  We  had  a 
nice  time  but  met  Jeff  Davises  son  and  some  sharp  words 
ensued." 

Venice.  "We  saw  a  palace  of  the  doges.  It  looks  like  a 
palace  you  could  be  comfortable  and  snug  in  (which  is  not 
usual)  — We  went  to  another  church  in  which  Conie  jumped 
over  tombstones  spanked  me  banged  Ellies  head  &c." 

"  Conie "  was  his  nickname  for  his  younger  sister 
Corinne.1 

November  22.  "In  the  evening  Mama  showed  me  the  por 
trait  of  Eidieth  Carow  and  her  face  stirred  up  in  me  home 
sickness  and  longings  for  the  past  which  will  come  again 
never  aback  never." 

The  little  girl,  the  sight  of  whose  portrait  stirred 
such  longings  for  the  past  in  the  heart  of  the  young 
Theodore,  was  Edith  Carow,  the  special  playmate 
of  his  sister  Conie  and  one  of  the  intimate  group 
whom  he  had  always  known.  Years  later  she  be 
came  his  wife. 

The  Roosevelt  family  returned  to  New  York  in 
May,  1870,  and  resumed  its  ordinary  life.  Theodore, 
whom  one  of  his  fellow  travelers  on  the  steamer 

1  She  subsequently  married  Mr.  Douglas  Robinson. 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  n 

remembers  as  "  a  tall  thin  lad  with  bright  eyes  and 
legs  like  pipestems,"  developed  rapidly  in  mind, 
but  the  asthma  still  tormented  him  and  threatened 
to  make  a  permanent  invalid  of  him.  His  father 
fitted  up  in  the  house  in  Twentieth  Street  a  small 
gymnasium  and  said  to  the  boy  in  substance, 
"You  have  brains,  but  you  have  a  sickly  body.  In 
order  to  make  your  brains  bring  you  what  they 
ought,  you  must  build  up  your  body;  it  depends 
upon  you."  The  boy  felt  both  the  obligation  and 
the  desire;  he  willed  to  be  strong,  and  he  went 
through  his  gymnastic  exercises  with  religious  preci 
sion.  What  he  read  in  his  books  about  knights  and 
paladins  and  heroes  had  always  greatly  moved  his 
imagination.  He  wanted  to  be  like  them.  He  under 
stood  that  the  one  indispensable  attribute  common 
to  all  of  them  was  bodily  strength.  Therefore  he 
would  be  strong.  Through  all  his  suffering  he  was 
patient  and  determined.  But  I  recall  no  other  boy, 
enfeebled  by  a  chronic  and  often  distressing  disease, 
who  resolved  as  he  did  to  conquer  his  enemy  by  a 
wisely  planned  and  unceasing  course  of  exercises. 

Improvement  came  slowly.  Many  were  the  nights 
in  which  he  spent  hours  gasping  for  breath.  Some 
times  on  summer  nights  his  father  would  wrap  him 
up  and  take  him  on  a  long  drive  through  the  dark 
ness  in  search  of  fresh  air.  But  no  matter  how  hard 


12  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  pinch,  the  boy  never  complained,  and  when 
ever  there  was  a  respite  his  vivacity  burst  forth  as 
fresh  as  ever.  He  could  not  attend  school  with  other 
boys  and,  indeed,  his  realization  that  he  could  not 
meet  them  on  equal  physical  terms  made  him  timid 
when  he  was  thrown  with  them.  So  he  pursued  his 
own  tastes  with  all  the  more  zeal.  He  read  many 
books,  some  of  which  seemed  beyond  a  boy's  ken, 
but  he  got  something  from  each  of  them.  His  power 
of  concentration  already  surprised  his  family.  If  he 
was  absorbed  in  a  chapter,  nothing  which  went  on 
outside  of  him,  either  noise  or  interruption,  could 
distract  his  attention.  His  passion  for  natural  his 
tory  increased.  At  the  age  of  ten,  he  opened  in  one 
of  the  rooms  of  his  home  "The  Roosevelt  Museum 
of  Natural  History."  Later,  he  devoted  himself  more 
particularly  to  birds,  and  learned  from  a  taxider 
mist  how  to  skin  and  stuff  his  specimens. 

In  1873,  President  Grant  appointed  Mr.  Roose 
velt  a  Commissioner  to  the  Vienna  Exposition  and 
the  Roosevelt  family  made  another  foreign  tour. 
Hoping  to  benefit  Theodore's  asthma  they  went  to 
Algiers,  and  up  the  Nile,  where  he  was  much  more 
interested  in  the  flocks  of  aquatic  fowl  than  in  the 
half-buried  temples  of  Dendera  or  the  obelisks  and 
pylons  of  Karnak.  He  even  makes  no  mention  of 
the  Pyramids,  but  records  with  enthusiasm  that  he 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  13 

found  at  Cairo  a  book  by  an  English  clergyman, 
whose  name  he  forgot,  on  the  ornithology  of  the 
Nile,  which  greatly  helped  him.  Incidentally,  he 
says  that  from  the  Latin  names  of  the  birds  he 
made  his  first  acquaintance  with  that  language. 

While  Mr.  Roosevelt  attended  to  his  duties  in 
Vienna  the  younger  children  were  placed  in  the 
family  of  Herr  Minckwitz,  a  Government  official 
at  Dresden.  There,  Theodore,  "in  spite  of  himself," 
learned  a  good  deal  of  German,  and  he  never  forgot 
his  pleasant  life  among  the  Saxons  in  the  days  be 
fore  the  virus  of  Prussian  barbarism  had  poisoned 
all  the  non-Prussian  Germans.  Minckwitz  had  been 
a  Liberal  in  the  Revolution  of  1848,  a  fact  which 
added  to  Theodore's  interest  in  him. 

On  getting  home,  Theodore,  who  was  fifteen  years 
old,  set  to  work  seriously  to  fit  himself  to  enter  Har 
vard  College.  Up  to  this  time  his  education  had 
been  unmethodical,  leaving  him  behind  his  fellows 
in  some  subjects  and  far  ahead  of  them  in  others. 
He  had  the  good  fortune  now  to  secure  as  a  tutor 
Mr.  Arthur  H.  Cutler,  for  many  years  head  of  the 
Cutler  Preparatory  School  in  New  York  City, 
thanks  to  whose  excellent  training  he  was  able  to 
enter  college  in  1876.  During  these  years  of  prep 
aration  Theodore's  health  steadily  improved.  He 
had  a  gun  and  was  an  ardent  sportsman,  the  in- 


I4  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

centive  of  adding  specimens  to  his  collection  of 
birds  and  animals  outweighing  the  mere  sport  of 
slaughter.  At  Oyster  Bay,  where  his  father  first 
leased  a  house  in  1874,  he  spent  much  of  his  time 
on  the  water,  but  he  deemed  sailing  rather  lazy 
and  unexciting,  compared  with  rowing.  He  enjoyed 
taking  his  row-boat  out  into  the  Sound,  and,  if  a 
high  head  wind  was  blowing,  or  the  sea  ran  in  white- 
caps,  so  much  the  better.  He  was  now  able  to  share 
in  all  of  the  athletic  pastimes  of  his  companions, 
although,  so  far  as  I  know,  he  never  indulged  in 
baseball,  the  commonest  game  of  all. 

When  he  entered  Harvard  as  a  Freshman  in  1876, 
that  institution  was  passing  through  its  transition 
from  college  to  university,  which  had  begun  when 
Charles  W.  Eliot  became  its  President  seven  years 
before.  In  spite  of  vehement  assaults,  the  Great 
Educator  pushed  on  his  reform  slowly  but  resist- 
lessly.  He  needed  to  train  not  only  the  public  but 
many  members,  perhaps  a  majority,  of  his  faculty. 
Young  Roosevelt  found  a  body  of  eight  hundred 
undergraduates,  the  largest  number  up  to  that  time. 
While  the  Elective  System  had  been  introduced  in 
the  upper  classes,  Freshmen  and  Sophomores  were 
still  required  to  take  the  courses  prescribed  for  them. 

To  one  who  looks  back,  after  forty  years,  on  the 
Harvard  of  that  time  there  was  much  about  it,  the 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  15 

loss  of  which  must  be  regretted.  Limited  in  many 
directions  it  was,  no  doubt,  but  its  very  limitations 
made  for  friendship  and  for  that  sense  of  intimate 
mutual  relationship,  out  of  which  springs  mutual 
affection.  You  belonged  to  Harvard,  and  she  to  you. 
That  she  was  small,  compared  with  her  later  mag 
nitude,  no  more  lessened  your  love  for  her,  than 
your  love  for  your  own  mother  could  be  increased 
were  she  suddenly  to  become  a  giantess.  The  under 
graduate  community  was  not  exactly  a  large  family, 
but  it  was,  nevertheless,  restricted  enough  not  only 
for  a  fellow  to  know  at  least  by  sight  all  of  his 
classmates,  but  also  to  have  some  knowledge  of 
what  was  going  on  in  other  classes  as  well  as  in  the 
College  as  a  whole.  Academic  fame,  too,  had  a  bet 
ter  chance  then  than  it  has  now.  There  were  eight 
or  ten  professors,  whom  most  of  the  fellows  knew  by 
sight,  and  all  by  reputation;  now,  however,  I  meet 
intelligent  students  who  have  never  heard  even  the 
name  of  the  head  of  some  department  who  is  fa 
mous  throughout  the  world  among  his  colleagues,  but 
whose  courses  that  student  has  never  taken. 

In  spite  of  the  simplicity  and  the  homelikeness 
of  the  Harvard  with  eight  hundred  undergraduates, 
however,  it  was  large  enough  to  afford  the  oppor 
tunity  of  meeting  men  of  many  different  tastes  and 
men  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  So  it  gave  free 


16  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

play  to  the  development  of  individual  talents,  and 
its  standard  of  scholarship  was  already  sufficiently 
high  to  ensure  the  excellence  of  the  best  scholars 
it  trained.  One  quality  which  we  probably  took 
little  note  of,  although  it  must  have  affected  us 
all,  sprang  from  the  fact  that  Harvard  was  still  a 
crescent  institution;  she  was  in  the  full  vigor  of 
growth,  of  expansion,  of  increase,  and  we  shared 
insensibly  from  being  connected  with  that  growth. 
In  retrospect  now,  and  giving  due  recognition  to 
this  crescent  spirit,  I  recall  that,  in  spite  of  it,  Omar 
Khayyam  was  the  favorite  poet  of  many  of  us, 
that  introspection,  which  sometimes  deepened  into 
pessimism,  was  in  vogue,  and  that  a  spiritual  or 
philosophic  languorous  disenchantment  sicklied  o'er 
the  somewhat  mottled  cast  of  our  thought. 

Roosevelt  took  rooms  at  No.  16  Winthrop  Street, 
a  quiet  little  lane  midway  between  the  College  Yard 
and  Charles  River,  where  he  could  pursue  his  hob 
bies  without  incessant  interruption  from  casual 
droppers-in.  Here  he  kept  the  specimens  which  he 
went  on  collecting,  some  live  —  a  large  turtle  and 
two  or  three  harmless  snakes,  for  instance  —  and 
some  dead  and  stuffed.  He  was  no  " grind" ;  the  gods 
take  care  not  to  mix  even  a  drop  of  pedantry  in 
the  make-up  of  the  rare  men  whom  they  destine  for 
great  deeds  or  fine  works.  Theodore  was  already 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  17 

so  much  stronger  in  his  health  that  he  went  on  to 
get  still  more  strength.  He  had  regular  lessons  in 
boxing.  He  took  long  walks  and  studied  the  flora 
and  fauna  of  the  country  round  Cambridge  in  his 
amateurish  but  intense  way.  During  his  first  Christ 
mas  vacation,  he  went  down  to  the  Maine  Woods 
and  camped  out,  and  there  he  met  Bill  Sewall,  a 
famous  guide,  who  remained  Theodore's  friend 
through  life,  and  Wilmot  Dow,  Sewall's  nephew, 
another  woodsman;  and  this  trip,  subsequently  fol 
lowed  by  others,  did  much  good  to  his  physique. 
He  still  had  occasional  attacks  of  asthma  —  he 
"guffled"  as  Bill  Sewall  called  it  —  and  they  were 
sometimes  acute,  but  his  tendency  to  them  slowly 
wore  away. 

All  his  days  Roosevelt  was  proud  of  being  a  Har 
vard  man.  Even  in  the  period  when  academic  Har 
vard  was  most  critical  of  his  public  acts,  he  never 
wavered  in  his  devotion  to  Alma  Mater  herself,  that 
dear  and  lovely  Being,  who,  like  the  ideal  of  our 
country,  lives  on  to  inspire  us  in  spite  of  unsym 
pathetic  administrations  and  unloved  leaders. 

"  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass." 

Nevertheless,  in  his  "Autobiography/7  Theodore 
makes  very  scant  record  of  his  college  life.  "I  thor 
oughly  enjoyed  Harvard,"  he  says,  "and  I  am  sure 


i8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

it  did  me  good,  but  only  in  the  general  effect,  for 
there  was  very  little  in  my  actual  studies  which 
helped  me  in  after  life."  1  Like  nine  out  of  ten  men 
who  look  back  on  college  he  could  make  no  definite 
estimate  of  the  actual  gains  from  those  four  years; 
but  it  is  precisely  the  indefiniteness,  the  elusiveness 
of  the  college  experience  which  marks  its  worth. 
This  is  not  to  be  reckoned  financially  by  an  in 
crease  in  dollars  and  cents,  or  intellectually,  by  so 
many  added  foot-pounds  of  knowledge.  Harvard 
College  was  of  inestimable  benefit  to  Roosevelt,  be 
cause  it  enabled  him  to  find  himself  —  to  be  a  man 
with  his  fellow  men. 

During  his  youth  his  physical  handicap  had  rather 
cut  him  off  from  companionship  on  equal  terms  with 
his  fellows.  Now,  however,  he  could  enter  with  zest 
in  their  sports  and  societies.  At  the  very  beginning 
of  his  Freshman  year  he  showed  his  classmates  his 
mettle.  During  the  presidential  torchlight  parade 
when  the  jubilant  Freshmen  were  marching  for 
Hayes,  some  Tilden  man  shouted  derisively  at  them 
from  a  second-story  window  and  pelted  them  with 
potatoes.  It  was  impossible  for  them  to  get  at  him, 
but  Theodore,  who  was  always  stung  at  any  dis 
play  of  meanness  —  and  it  was  certainly  mean  to 
attack  the  paraders  when  they  could  not  retaliate 

1  Autobiography,  27. 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  '19 

—  stood  out  from  the  line  and  shook  his  fist  at  the 
assailant.  His  fellow  marchers  asked  who  their 
champion  was,  and  so  the  name  of  Roosevelt  and 
his  pugnacious  little  figure  became  generally  known 
to  them.  He  was  little  then,  not  above  five  feet  six 
in  height,  and  under  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds 
in  weight.  By  degrees  they  all  knew  him.  His  unu 
sual  ways,  his  loyalty  to  his  hobbies,  which  he  treated 
not  as  mere  whims  but  as  being  worthy  of  serious 
application,  his  versatility,  his  outspokenness,  his 
almost  unbroken  good-nature,  attracted  most  of  the 
persons  with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  He  rose  to 
be  President  of  the  Natural  History  Society,  a  dis 
tinction  which  implied  some  real  merit  in  its  posses 
sor.  His  family  antecedents,  but  still  more  his  per 
sonal  qualities,  made  easy  for  him  the  ascent  of  the 
social  terraces  at  Harvard  —  the  Dicky,  the  Hasty 
Pudding  Club,  and  the  Porcellian.  He  was  editor  of 
the  Harvard  Advocate,  which  opened  the  door  of  the 
O.K.  Society,  where  he  found  congenial  intellectual 
companionship  with  the  editors  from  the  classes 
above  and  below  him;  and  when  Dr.  Edward  Ever 
ett  Hale  wished  to  revive  and  perpetuate  the  Alpha 
Delta  Phi  Fraternity,  Roosevelt  was  one  of  the 
half-dozen  men  from  the  Class  of  1880  whom  he 
selected. 

My  first  definite  recollection  of  him  is  at  the 


20  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

annual  dinner  of  the  Harvard  Crimson  in  January  or 
February,  1879.  He  was  invited  as  a  guest  to  repre 
sent  the  Advocate.  Since  entering  college  I  had  met 
him  casually  many  times  and  had  heard  of  his  oddi 
ties  and  exuberance;  but  throughout  this  dinner  I 
came  to  feel  that  I  knew  him.  On  being  called  on 
to  speak  he  seemed  very  shy  and  made,  what  I 
think  he  said,  was  his  maiden  speech.  He  still  had 
difficulty  in  enunciating  clearly  or  even  in  running 
off  his  words  smoothly.  At  times  he  could  hardly 
get  them  out  at  all,  and  then  he  would  rush  on  for 
a  few  sentences,  as  skaters  redouble  their  pace  over 
thin  ice.  He  told  the  story  of  two  old  gentlemen 
who  stammered,  the  point  of  which  was,  that  one  of 
them,  after  distressing  contortions  and  stoppages, 
recommended  the  other  to  go  to  Dr.  X,  adding, 
"He  cured  me." 

A  trifling  bit  of  thistledown  for  memory  to  have 
preserved  after  all  these  years;  but  still  it  is  inter 
esting  to  me  to  recall  that  this  was  the  beginning 
of  the  public  speaking  of  the  man  who  later  ad 
dressed  more  audiences  than  any  other  orator  of 
his  time  and  made  a  deeper  impression  by  his 
spoken  word. 

One  other  reminiscence  of  Roosevelt  at  Harvard, 
almost  as  unsubstantial  as  this.  Late  in  his  Senior 
year  we  had  a  committee  meeting  of  the  Alpha  Delta 


Photograph  by  J.  Notman,  Boston 
ROOSEVELT  IN  1880 
As  a  Senior  at  Harvard  College 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  21 

Phi  in  Charles  Washburn's  room  at  15  Holworthy. 
Roosevelt  and  I  sat  in  the  window-seat  overlooking 
the  College  Yard  and  chatted  together  in  the  inter 
vals  when  business  was  slack.  We  discussed  what  we 
intended  to  do  after  graduation.  "  I  am  going  to  try 
to  help  the  cause  of  better  government  in  New  York 
City;  I  don't  know  exactly  how,"  said  Theodore. 

I  recall,  still,  looking  hard  at  him  with  an  eager, 
inquisitive  look  and  saying  to  myself,  "I  wonder 
whether  he  is  the  real  thing,  or  only  the  bundle  of 
eccentricities  which  he  appears."  There  was  in  me 
then,  as  there  has  always  been,  a  mingling  of  skep 
ticism  and  of  deep  reverence  for  those  who  dealt 
with  reality,  and  I  had  not  had  sufficient  oppor 
tunity  to  determine  whether  Roosevelt  was  real  or 
not.  One  at  least  of  his  classmates,  however,  saw  por 
tents  of  greatness  in  Theodore,  from  their  Freshman 
year,  and  most  of  us,  even  when  we  were  amused  and 
puzzled  by  his  "queerness,"  were  very  sure  that  the 
man  from  whom  they  sprang  was  not  commonplace. 

So  far  as  I  remember,  Roosevelt  was  the  first 
undergraduate  to  own  and  drive  a  dog-cart.  This 
excited  various  comments;  so  did  the  reddish,  pow 
der-puff  side  whiskers  which  no  chaffing  could 
make  him  cut.  There  was  never  the  slightest  sug 
gestion  of  the  gilded  youth  about  him;  though 
dog-carts,  especially  when  owned  by  young  men, 


22  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

implied  the  habits  and  standards  of  the  gilded  rich. 
How  explain  the  paradox?  On  the  other  hand,  Theo 
dore  taught  Sunday  School  at  Christ  Church,  but 
he  was  so  muscular  a  Christian  that  the  decorous 
vestrymen  thought  him  an  unwise  guide  in  piety. 
For  one  day  a  boy  came  to  class  with  a  black  eye 
which  he  had  got  in  fighting  a  larger  boy  for  pinching 
his  sister.  Theodore  told  him  that  he  did  perfectly 
right  —  that  every  boy  ought  to  defend  any  girl 
from  insult —  and  he  gave  him  a  dollar  as  a  reward. 
The  vestrymen  decided  that  this  was  too  flagrant 
approval  of  fisticuffs;  so  the  young  teacher  soon 
found  a  welcome  in  the  Sunday  School  of  a  different 
denomination. 

Of  all  the  stories  of  Roosevelt's  college  career, 
that  of  his  boxing  match  is  most  vividly  remem 
bered.  He  enrolled  in  the  light-weight  sparring  at 
the  meeting  in  the  Harvard  Gymnasium  on  March 
22,  1879,  and  defeated  his  first  competitor.  When 
the  referee  called  "time,"  Roosevelt  immediately 
dropped  his  hands,  but  the  other  man  dealt  him  a 
savage  blow  on  the  face,  at  which  we  all  shouted, 
"Foul,  foul!"  and  hissed;  but  Roosevelt  turned 
towards  us  and  cried  out  "Hush!  He  did  n't  hear," 
a  chivalrous  act  which  made  him  immediately  popu 
lar.  In  his  second  match  he  met  Hanks.  They  both 
weighed  about  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds, 


ORIGINS  AND  YOUTH  23 

but  Hanks  was  two  or  three  inches  taller  and  he 
had  a  much  longer  reach,  so  that  Theodore  could 
not  get  in  his  blows,  and  although  he  fought  with 
unabated  pluck,  he  lost  the  contest.  More  serious 
than  his  short  reach,  however,  was  his  near-sight 
edness,  which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  see  and 
parry  Hanks's  lunges.  When  time  was  called  after 
the  last  round,  his  face  was  dashed  with  blood  and 
he  was  much  winded;  but  his  spirit  did  not  flag, 
and  if  there  had  been  another  round,  he  would 
have  gone  into  it  with  undiminished  determina 
tion.  From  this  contest  there  sprang  up  the  legend 
that  Roosevelt  boxed  with  his  eyeglasses  lashed  to 
his  head,  and  the  legend  floated  hither  and  thither 
for  nearly  thirty  years.  Not  long  ago  I  asked  him 
the  truth.  "  Persons  who  believe  that,"  he  said, 
"must  think  me  utterly  crazy;  for  one  of  Charlie 
Hanks's  blows  would  have  smashed  my  eyeglasses 
and  probably  blinded  me  for  life." 

In  a  class  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  he  gradu 
ated  twenty-second,  which  entitled  him  to  mem 
bership  in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  the  society  of  high 
scholars.  To  one  who  examines  his  academic  record 
wisely,  the  best  symptom  is  that  he  did  fairly  well 
in  several  unrelated  subjects,  and  achieved  preem 
inence  in  one,  natural  history.  He  had  the  all-round 
quality  which  shows  more  promise  than  does  a 


24  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

propensity  to  light  on  a  particular  topic  and  suck 
it  dry;  but  he  had  also  power  of  concentration  and 
thoroughness.  As  I  have  just  said,  he  was  a  happy 
combination  of  the  amateurish  and  intense.  His 
habit  of  absorption  became  a  by- word;  for  if  he 
visited  a  classmate's  room  and  saw  a  book  which 
interested  him,  instead  of  joining  in  the  talk,  he 
would  devour  the  book,  oblivious  of  everything 
else,  until  the  college  bell  rang  for  the  next  lecture, 
when  he  would  jump  up  with  a  start,  and  dash  off. 
The  quiet  but  firm  teaching  of  his  parents  bore 
fruit  in  him:  he  came  to  college  with  a  body  of 
rational  moral  principles  which  he  made  no  parade 
of,  but  obeyed  instinctively.  And  so,  where  many 
young  fellows  are  thrown  off  their  balance  on  first 
acquiring  the  freedom  which  college  life  gives,  or 
are  dazed  and  distracted  on  first  hearing  the  ba 
bel  of  strange  philosophies  or  novel  doctrines,  he 
walked  straight,  held  himself  erect,  and  was  not 
fooled  into  mistaking  novelty  for  truth,  or  libertin 
ism  for  manliness. 

Two  outside  events  which  deeply  influenced  him 
must  be  noted.  During  his  Sophomore  year  his  father 
died;  and  during  his  Senior  year,  Theodore  became 
engaged  to  Miss  Alice  Hathaway  Lee,  daughter  of 
George  C.  Lee,  of  Chestnut  Hill,  Massachusetts. 


CHAPTER  II 

BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS 

ROOSEVELT  was  a  few  months  less  than 
twenty-two  years  old  when  he  graduated  from 
Harvard.  His  career  in  college  had  wrought  several 
important  changes  in  him.  First  of  all,  his  strength 
was  confirmed.  Although  he  still  suffered  occasion 
ally  from  asthma,  he  was  no  longer  handicapped.  In 
business,  or  in  pleasure,  he  did  not  need  to  consider 
his  health.  Next,  he  had  come  to  some  definite  de 
cision  as  to  what  he  would  do.  His  earlier  dream  of 
becoming  a  professor  of  natural  history  had  faded 
away.  With  the  inpouring  of  vigor  into  his  consti 
tution  the  ideal  of  an  academic  life,  often  sedentary 
in  mind  as  well  as  in  body,  ceased  to  lure  him.  He 
craved  activity,  and  this  craving  was  bound  to 
grow  more  urgent  as  he  acquired  more  strength. 
Next,  and  this  consideration  must  not  be  neglected, 
lie  was  free  to  choose.  His  father's  death  left  him 
the  possessor  of  a  sufficient  fortune  to  live  on  com 
fortably  without  need  of  working  to  earn  his  bread 
and  butter  —  the  motive  which  determines  most 
young  men  when  they  start  in  life.  Finally,  his  fa 
ther's  example,  reinforced  by  wholesome  advice, 


26  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

quickened  in  Theodore  his  sense  of  obligation  to 
the  community.  Having  money,  he  must  use  it, 
not  for  mere  personal  gratification,  but  in  ways 
which  would  benefit  those  who  were  deprived,  or 
outcast,  or  bereft.  But  Theodore  was  too  young 
and  too  energetic  to  be  contented  with  the  life  of  a 
philanthropist,  no  matter  how  noble  and  necessary 
its  objects  might  be.  He  had  already  accepted  Emer 
son 's  dictum: 

"He  who  feeds  men,  serves  a  few; 
He  serves  all  who  dares  be  true." 

Young  as  he  was,  he  divined  that  much  of  the  chari 
table  work,  to  which  good  people  devote  them 
selves  in  order  to  lighten  or  relieve  the  ills  which 
the  sins  and  errors  of  mankind  beget,  would  be 
needless  if  the  remedy  were  applied,  as  it  ought  to 
be,  to  fundamental  social  conditions.  These,  he  be 
lieved,  could  be  reached  in  many  cases  through  polit 
ical  agency,  and  he  resolved,  therefore,  to  make  a 
trial  of  his  talents  in  political  life. 

The  point  at  which  he  decided  to  "  break  into 
politics,"  as  he  expressed  it,  was  the  Assembly,  or 
Lower  House  of  the  New  York  State  Legislature. 
Most  of  his  friends  and  classmates,  on  hearing  of 
his  plan,  regarded  it  as  a  proof  of  his  eccentricity; 
a  few  of  them,  the  more  discerning,  would  not  pre 
judge  him,  but  were  rather  inclined  to  hope.  By 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  27 

tradition  and  instinct,  he  was  a  Republican,  and 
in  order  to  learn  the  political  ropes  he  joined  the 
Twenty-first  District  Republican  Association  of 
New  York  City.  The  district  consisted  chiefly  of 
rich,  respectable,  and  socially  conspicuous  inhabit 
ants  of  the  vortex  metropolis,  with  a  leaven  of  the 
1  'masses.'*  The  " classes"  had  no  real  zeal  for  dis 
charging  their  political  duty.  They  subscribed  to 
the  campaign  fund,  but  had  too  delicate  a  sense  of 
propriety  to  ask  how  their  money  was  spent.  A  few 
of  them  —  and  these  seemed  to  be  endowed  with 
a  special  modicum  of  patriotism  —  even  attended 
the  party  primaries  in  which  candidates  were  named. 
The  majority  went  to  the  polls  and  cast  their  vote 
on  election  day,  if  it  did  not  rain  or  snow. 

For  a  young  man  of  Roosevelt's  position  to  de 
sire  to  take  up  politics  seemed  to  his  friends  almost 
comic.  Politics  were  low  and  corrupt;  politics  were 
not  for  "gentlemen";  they  were  the  business  and 
pastime  of  liquor-dealers,  and  of  the  degenerates 
and  loafers  who  frequented  the  saloons,  of  horse-car 
conductors,  and  of  many  others  whose  ties  with 
" respectability"  were  slight. 

To  join  the  organization,  Roosevelt  had  to  be 
elected  to  the  Twenty-first  District  Republican 
Club,  for  the  politicians  of  those  days  kept  their 
organization  close,  not  to  say  exclusive,  and  in  this 


28  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

way  they  secured  the  docility  of  their  members. 
The  Twenty-first  District  Club  met  in  Morton  Hall, 
a  dingy,  barnlike  room  situated  over  a  saloon,  and 
furnished  severely  with  wooden  benches,  many 
spittoons,  and  a  speaker's  table  decorated  with  a 
large  pitcher  for  ice-water.  The  regular  meetings 
came  once  a  month  and  Roosevelt  attended  them 
faithfully,  because  he  never  did  things  by  halves, 
and  having  made  up  his  mind  to  learn  the  mechan 
ism  of  politics,  he  would  not  neglect  any  detail. 

Despite  the  shyness  which  ill  health  caused  him 
in  his  youth,  he  was  really  a  good  "mixer,"  and, 
growing  to  feel  more  sure  of  himself,  he  met  men  on 
equal  terms.  More  than  that,  he  had  the  art  of  in 
spiring  confidence  in  persons  of  divers  sorts  and, 
as  he  was  really  interested  in  knowing  their  thoughts 
and  desires,  it  never  took  him  long  to  strike  up 
friendly  relations  with  them. 

Jake  Hess,  the  Republican  "  Boss"  of  the  Twenty- 
first  District,  evidently  eyed  Roosevelt  with  some 
suspicion,  for  the  newcomer  belonged  to  a  class 
which  Jake  did  not  desire  to  see  largely  represented 
in  the  business  of  "practical  politics,"  and  so  he 
treated  Roosevelt  with  a  "rather  distant  affability. " 
The  young  man,  however,  got  on  well  enough  with 
the  heelers  —  the  immediate  trusty  followers  of 
the  Boss  —  and  with  the  ordinary  members.  They 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  29 

probably  marveled  to  see  him  so  unlike  what  they 
believed  a  youth  of  the  "kid-glove"  and  "silk- 
stocking"  set  would  be,  and  they  accepted  him  as 
a  "good  fellow." 

Of  all  Roosevelt's  comrades  during  this  first  year 
of  initiation,  a  young  Irishman  named  Joe  Murray 
was  nearest  to  him,  an  honest  fellow,  fearless  and 
stanch,  who  remained  his  loyal  friend  for  forty 
years.  Murray  began  as  a  Democrat  of  the  Tammany 
Hall  tribe,  but  having  been  left  in  the  lurch  by  his 
Boss  at  an  election,  he  determined  to  punish  the 
Boss,  and  this  he  did  at  the  first  opportunity  by 
throwing  his  influence  on  the  side  of  the  Republican 
candidate.  The  Republicans  won,  although  the 
district  was  overwhelmingly  Democratic,  and  Mur 
ray  joined  the  Republican  Party.  He  worked  in 
the  district  where  Jake  Hess  ruled.  Like  other  even 
greater^  men,  Jake  became  arrogant  and  treated 
the  gang  under  him  with  condescension.  Murray 
resented  this  and  resolved  that  he  would  humble 
the  Boss  by  supporting  Roosevelt  as  a  candidate 
for  the  Assembly.  Hess  protested,  but  could  not 
prevent  the  nomination  and  during  the  campaign 
he  seems  to  have  supported  the  candidate  whom 
he  had  not  chosen. 

Roosevelt  sent  the  following  laconic  appeal  to 
some  of  the  voters  of  his  district: 


3o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

New  York,  November  I,  1881. 
DEAR  SIR  : 

Having  been  nominated  as  a  candidate  for  member  of 
Assembly  for  this  District,  I  would  esteem  it  a  compliment 
if  you  honor  me  with  your  vote  and  personal  influence  on 
Election  day. 

Very  respectfully 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Certainly,  nothing  could  be  simpler  than  this 
card,  which  contains  no  puff  of  either  the  party  or 
the  candidate,  or  no  promise.  It  drew  a  cordial  re 
sponse. 

Twenty-first  Assembly  District. 
4Oth  to  86th  Sts.,  Lexington  to  yth  Aves. 

We  cordially  recommend  the  voters  of  the  Twenty-first 
Assembly  District  to  cast  their  ballots  for 

Theodore  Roosevelt 
for  member  of  Assembly 

and  take  much  pleasure  in  testifying  to  our  appreciation  of 
his  high  character  and  standing  in  the  community.  He  is 
conspicuous  for  his  honesty  and  integrity,  and  eminently 
qualified  to  represent  the  District  in  the  Assembly. 

New  York  November  i,  1881 

F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  William  T.  Black,  Willard  Bullard, 
Joseph  H.  Choate,  William  A.  Darling,  Henry  E. 
Davies,  Theodore  W.  Dwight,  Jacob  Hess,  Morris  K. 
Jesup,  Edward  Mitchell,  William  F.  Morgan,  Chas.  S. 
Robinson,  Elihu  Root,  Jackson  S.  Shultz,  Elliott  F. 
Shepard,  Gustavus  Tuckerman,  S.  H.  Wales,  W.  H. 
Webb. 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  31 

This  list  bears  the  names  of  at  least  two  men  who 
will  be  long  remembered.  There  are  also  several 
others  which  were  doubtless  of  more  political  value 
to  the  aspirant  to  office  in  1881. 

Just  after  the  election  Roosevelt  wrote  to  his 
classmate,  Charles  G.  Washburn: 

Too  true,  too  true;  I  have  become  a  "political  hack."  Find 
ing  it  would  not  interfere  much  with  my  law,  I  accepted  the 
nomination  to  the  Assembly  and  was  elected  by  1 500  majority, 
leading  the  ticket  by  600  votes.  But  don't  think  I  am  going 
to  go  into  politics  after  this  year,  for  I  am  not. 

Roosevelt's  allusion  to  the  law  requires  the  state 
ment  that  in  the  autumn  of  1880  he  had  begun  to 
read  law  in  the  office  of  his  uncle,  Robert  Roosevelt; 
not  that  he  had  a  strong  leaning  to  the  legal  pro 
fession,  but  that  he  believed  that  every  one,  no 
matter  how  well  off  he  might  be,  ought  to  be  able 
to  support  himself  by  some  occupation  or  profession. 
Also,  he  could  not  endure  being  idle,  and  he  knew 
that  the  slight  political  work  on  which  he  em 
barked  when  he  joined  the  Twenty-first  District 
Republican  Club  would  take  but  little  of  his  time. 
During  that  first  year  out  of  college  he  established 
himself  as  a  citizen,  not  merely  politically,  but  so 
cially.  On  his  birthday  in  1880  he  married  Miss  Lee 
and  they  set  up  their  home  at  6  West  Fifty-seventh 
Street;  he  joined  social  and  literary  clubs  and  ex- 


32  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

tended  his  athletic  interests  beyond  wrestling  and 
boxing  to  hunting,  rifle  practice,  and  polo. 

His  law  studies  seem  to  have  absorbed  him  less 
than  anything  else  that  he  undertook  during  all 
his  life.  He  could  not  fail  to  be  interested  in  them,  but 
he  never  plunged  into  them  with  all  his  might  and 
main  as  if  he  intended  to  make  them  his  chief  con 
cern.  For  a  while  he  had  a  desk  in  the  office  of  the 
publishers,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons:  but  Major  George 
Putnam  recalls  that  he  did  little  except  suggest 
wonderful  projects,  which  "had  to  be  sat  down 
upon."  Already  a  love  of  writing  infected  him. 
Even  before  he  left  Harvard  he  had  begun  "A  His 
tory  of  the  Naval  War  of  1812,"  and  this  he  worked 
on  eagerly.  The  Putnams  published  it  in  1882. 

One  incident  of  Roosevelt's  canvass  must  not  be 
overlooked.  The  Red  Indians  of  old  used  to  make 
their  captives  run  the  gauntlet  between  two  lines  of 
warriors:  political  bosses  in  New  York  in  1880  made 
their  nominee  run  the  gauntlet  of  all  the  saloon 
keepers  in  their  district.  Accordingly,  Jake  Hess 
and  Joe  Murray  proceeded  to  introduce  Roosevelt 
to  the  rum-sellers  of  Sixth  Avenue.  The  first  they 
visited  received  Theodore  with  injudicious  conde 
scension  almost  as  if  he  were  a  suppliant.  He  said 
he  hoped  that  the  young  candidate,  if  elected,  would 
treat  the  liquor  men  fairly,  to  which  the  "suppliant" 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  33 

replied  that  he  intended  to  treat  all  interests  fairly. 
The  suggestion  that  liquor  licenses  were  too  high 
brought  the  retort  that  they  were  not  high  enough. 
Thereupon,  the  wary  Hess  and  the  discreet  Joe 
Murray  found  an  excuse  for  hurrying  Roosevelt  out 
of  the  saloon,  and  they  told  him  that  he  had  better 
look  after  his  friends  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  that  they 
would  look  after  the  saloon-keepers  on  Sixth  Avenue. 
That  any  decent  candidate  should  have  to  pass  in 
review  before  the  saloon-keepers  and  receive  their 
approval,  is  so  monstrous  as  to  be  grotesque.  That 
a  possible  President  of  the  United  States  should 
be  the  victim  needs  no  comment.  It  was  thoroughly 
characteristic  of  Roosevelt  that  he  balked  at  the 
first  trial. 

He  says  in  his  ''Autobiography*'  that  he  was  not 
conscious  of  going  into  politics  to  benefit  other  peo 
ple,  but  to  secure  for  himself  a  privilege  to  which 
every  one  was  entitled.  That  privilege  was  self- 
government.  When  his  " kid-glove"  friends  laughed 
at  him  for  deliberately  choosing  to  leap  into  the 
political  mire,  he  told  them  that  the  governing  class 
ought  to  govern,  and  that  not  they  themselves  but 
the  bosses  and  " heelers"  were  the  real  governors  of 
New  York  City.  Not  the  altruistic  desire  to  reform, 
but  the  perfectly  practical  resolve  to  enjoy  the  polit 
ical  rights  to  which  he  had  a  claim  was  his  leading; 


34  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

motive.  It  is  important  to  understand  this  because 
it  will  explain  much  of  his  action  as  a  statesman. 
Roosevelt  is  the  greatest  idealist  in  American  public 
life  since  Lincoln;  but  his  idealism,  like  Lincoln's, 
always  had  a  firm,  intelligent,  practical  footing. 

Roosevelt  himself  thus  describes  his  work  during 
his  first  year  in  the  New  York  Assembly: 

I  paid  attention  chiefly  while  in  the  Legislature  to  laws 
for  the  reformation  of  Primaries  and  of  the  Civil  Service  and 
endeavored  to  have  a  certain  Judge  Westbrook  impeached, 
on  the  ground  of  corrupt  collusion  with  Jay  Gould  and  the 
prostitution  of  his  high  judicial  office  to  serve  the  purpose  of 
wealthy  and  unscrupulous  stock  gamblers,  but  was  voted 
down. 

This  brief  statement  gives  no  idea  of  either  the 
magnitude  or  quality  of  his  work  in  which,  like 
young  David,  he  went  forth  to  smite  Goliath,  the 
Giant  Corruption,  entrenched  for  years  in  the 
Albany  State  House.  I  do  not  believe  that  in  at 
tacking  the  monster,  Roosevelt  thought  that  he 
was  displaying  unusual  courage,  much  less  that  he 
was  winning  the  crown  of  a  moral  hero.  He  simply 
saw  a  mass  of  abuse  and  wickedness  which  every 
decent  person  ought  to  repudiate.  Most  decent  per 
sons  saw  it,  too,  but  convention,  or  self-interest, 
party  affiliation,  or  unromantic,  every-day  cow 
ardice,  made  them  hold  their  tongues. 

Being  assigned  to  committees  which  had  some 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  35 

of  the  most  important  concerns  of  New  York  City 
in  charge,  Roosevelt  had  the  advantage  given  by 
his  initiation  into  political  methods  as  practiced  in 
the  Twenty-first  District  of  knowing  a  little  more 
than  his  colleagues  knew  about  the  local  issues. 

Three  months  of  the  session  elapsed  before  he 
stood  up  in  the  Chamber  and  attacked  point-blank 
one  formidable  champion  of  corruption.  Listen  to 
an  anonymous  writer  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post: 

It  was  on  April  6,  1882,  that  Roosevelt  took  the  floor  in 
the  Assembly  and  demanded  that  Judge  Westbrook,  of  New- 
bury,  be  impeached.  And  for  sheer  moral  courage  that  act  is 
probably  supreme  in  Roosevelt's  life  thus  far.  He  must  have 
expected  failure.  Even  his  youth  and  idealism  and  ignorance 
of  public  affairs  could  not  blind  him  to  the  apparently  inevit 
able  consequences.  Yet  he  drew  his  sword  and  rushed  appar 
ently  to  destruction  —  alone,  and  at  the  very  outset  of  his 
career,  and  in  disregard  of  the  pleadings  of  his  closest  friends 
and  the  plain  dictates  of  political  wisdom. 

That  speech  —  the  deciding  act  in  Roosevelt's  career  —  is 
not  remarkable  for  eloquence.  But  it  is  remarkable  for  fear 
less  candor.  He  called  thieves  thieves,  regardless  of  their  mil 
lions;  he  slashed  savagely  at  the  Judge  and  the  Attorney- 
General  ;  he  told  the  plain  unvarnished  truth  as  his  indignant 
eyes  saw  it.1 

Astonishment  verging  on  consternation  filled  the 
Assemblymen,  who,  through  long  experience,  were 
convinced  that  Truth  was  too  precious  to  be  ex 
hibited  in  public.  Worldly  wisdom  came  to  the  aid 

1  Riis,  54-55. 


36  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  the  veteran  Republican  leader  who  wished  to 
treat  the  assault  as  if  it  were  the  unripe  explosion 
of  youth.  The  callowness  of  his  young  friend  must 
excuse  him.  He  doubtless  meant  well,  but  his  inex 
perience  prevented  him  from  realizing  that  many 
a  reputation  in  public  life  had  been  shattered  by 
just  such  loose  charges.  He  felt  sure  that  when  the 
young  man  had  time  to  think  it  over,  he  would 
modify  his  language.  It  would  be  fitting,  therefore, 
for  that  body  to  show  its  kindliness  by  giving  the 
new  member  from  New  York  City  leisure  to  think 
it  over. 

Little  did  this  official  defender  of  corruption  un 
derstand  Mr.  Roosevelt,  whose  business  it  was  then 
to  uphold  Right.  That  was  a  question  in  which  ex 
pediency  could  have  no  voice.  He  regarded  neither 
the  harm  he  might  possibly  do  to  his  political  future 
nor  to  the  standing  of  the  Republican  Party.  I  sus 
pect  that  he  smarted  under  the  leader's  attempt  to 
treat  him  as  a  young  man  whose  breaks  instead  of 
causing  surprise  must  be  condoned.  Although  the 
magnates  of  the  party  pleaded  with  him  and  urged 
him  not  to  throw  away  his  usefulness,  he  rose  again 
in  the  Assembly  next  day  and  renewed  his  demand 
for  an  investigation  of  Judge  Westbrook.  Day  after 
day  he  repeated  his  demand.  The  newspapers 
throughout  the  State  began  to  give  more  and  more 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  37 

attention  to  him.  The  public  applauded,  and  the 
legislators,  who  had  sat  and  listened  to  him  with 
contemptuous  indifference,  heard  from  their  constit 
uents.  At  last,  on  the  eighth  day,  by  a  vote  of  104 
to  6  the  Assembly  adopted  Roosevelt's  resolution 
and  appointed  an  investigating  committee.  The  evi 
dence  taken  amply  justified  Roosevelt's  charges,  in 
spite  of  which  the  committee  gave  a  whitewashing 
verdict.  Nevertheless  the  "young  reformer"  had  not 
only  proved  his  case,  but  had  suddenly  made  a  name 
for  himself  in  the  State  and  in  the  Country. 

Before  his  first  term  ended  he  discovered  that 
there  were  enemies  of  honest  government  quite  as 
dangerous  as  the  open  supporters  of  corruption. 
These  were  the  demagogues  who,  under  the  pretense 
of  attacking  the  wicked  interests,  introduced  bills 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  being  bought  off.  Sly  fellows 
they  were  and  sneaks.  Against  their  "strike"  legis 
lation  Roosevelt  had  also  to  fight.  His  chief  friend  at 
Albany  was  Billy  O'Neil,  who  kept  a  little  cross 
roads  grocery  up  in  the  Adirondacks;  had  thought 
for  himself  on  American  politics;  had  secured  his 
election  to  the  Assembly  without  the  favor  of  the 
Machine;  and  now  acted  there  with  as  much  inde 
pendence  as  his  young  colleague  of  the  Twenty-first 
District.  Roosevelt  remarks  that  the  fact  that  two 
persons,  sprung  from  such  totally  different  sur- 


38  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

roundings,  should  come  together  in  the  Legislature 
was  an  example  of  the  fine  result  which  American 
democracy  could  achieve. 

The  session  came  to  a  close,  and  although  Roose 
velt  had  protested  the  year  before  that  he  was  not 
going  into  politics  as  a  career,  he  allowed  himself  to 
be  renominated.  Naturally,  his  desire  to  continue  in 
and  complete  the  task  in  which  he  had  already  ac 
complished  much  was  whetted.  He  would  have  been 
a  fool  if  he  had  not  known,  what  every  one  else 
knew,  that  he  had  made  a  very  brilliant  record  dur 
ing  his  first  year.  A  false  standard  which  comes  very 
near  hypocrisy  imposes  a  ridiculous  mock  modesty 
on  great  men  in  modern  times:  as  if  Shakespeare 
alone  should  be  unaware  that  he  was  Shakespeare  or 
that  Napoleon  or  Darwin  or  Lincoln  or  Cavour 
should  each  be  ignorant  of  his  worth.  Better  vanity, 
if  you  will,  than  sham  modesty.  There  was  no  harm 
done  that  Roosevelt  at  twenty-three  felt  proud  of 
being  recognized  as  a  power  in  the  Assembly.  We 
must  never  forget  also  that  he  was  a  fighter,  and 
that  his  first  contests  in  Albany  had  so  roused  his 
blood  that  he  longed  to  fight  those  battles  to  a  fin 
ish,  that  is,  to  victory.  We  must  make  a  distinction 
also  in  his  motives.  He  did  not  strain  every  nerve  to 
win  a  cause  because  it  was  his  cause;  but  having 
adopted  a  cause  which  his  heart  and  mind  told  him 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  39 

was  good,  he  strove  to  make  that  cause  triumph  be 
cause  he  believed  it  to  be  good. 

So  he  allowed  himself  to  be  renominated  and  he 
was  reflected  by  2000  majority,  although  in  that 
autumn  of  1882  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Gov 
ernor,  Grover  Cleveland,  swept  New  York  State  by 
192,000  and  carried  into  office  by  the  momentum  of 
his  success  many  of  the  minor  candidates  on  the 
Democratic  ticket. 

The  year  1883  opened  with  the  cheer  of  dawn  in 
New  York  politics.  Cleveland,  the  young  Governor 
of  forty-four,  had  proved  himself  fearless,  public- 
spirited,  and  conscientious.  So  had  Roosevelt,  the 
young  Assemblyman  of  twenty-three.  One  was  a 
Democrat,  one  a  Republican,  but  they  were  alike  in 
courage  and  in  holding  honesty  and  righteousness 
above  their  party  platforms. 

Roosevelt  pursued  in  this  session  the  methods 
which  had  made  him  famous  and  feared  in  the  pre 
ceding.  He  admits  that  he  may  have  had  for  a  while 
a  " swelled  head,"  for  in  the  chaos  of  conflicting 
principles  and  no-principles  in  which  his  life  was 
thrown,  he  decided  to  act  independently  and  to  let 
his  conscience  determine  his  action  on  each  question 
which  arose.  He  flocked  by  himself  on  a  peak.  He 
was  too  practical,  however,  to  hold  this  course  long. 
Experience  had  already  taught  him  that  under  a 


40  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

constitutional  government  parties  which  advocate 
or  oppose  issues  must  rule,  and  that  in  order  to  make 
your  issues  win  you  must  secure  a  majority  of  the 
votes.  Not  by  playing  solitaire,  therefore,  not  by 
standing  aloof  as  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  but  by 
honestly  persuading  as  many  as  you  could  to  sup 
port  you,  could  you  promote  the  causes  which  you 
had  at  heart.  The  professional  politicians  and  the 
Machine  leaders  still  thought  that  he  was  stubborn 
and  too  conceited  to  listen  to  reason,  but  in  reality 
he  had  a  few  intimates  like  Billy  O'Neil  and  Mike 
Costello  with  whom  he  took  counsel,  and  a  group  of 
thirty  or  forty  others,  both  Republican  and  Demo 
cratic,  with  whom  he  acted  harmoniously  on  many 
questions. 

They  all  united  to  fight  the  Black-Horse  Cavalry, 
as  the  gang  of  " strike"  legislators  was  called.  One 
of  the  most  insidious  bills  pushed  by  these  rascals 
aimed  at  reducing  the  fares  on  the  New  York  Ele 
vated  Railway  from  ten  cents  to  five  cents.  It 
seemed  so  plausible !  So  entirely  in  the  interest  of  the 
poor  man!  Indeed,  the  affairs  of  the  Elevated  took 
up  much  of  Roosevelt's  attention  and  enriched  for 
years  the  Black-Horse  Cavalrymen  and  the  lobby 
ists.  He  also  forced  the  Assembly  to  appoint  a  com 
mission  to  investigate  the  New  York  City  police 
officials,  the  police  department  being  at  that  time 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  41 

notoriously  corrupt.  They  employed  as  their  counsel 
George  Bliss,  a  lawyer  of  prominence,  with  a  sharp 
tongue  and  a  contempt  for  self-constituted  re 
formers.  While  Roosevelt  was  cross-examining  one 
of  the  officials,  Bliss,  who  little  understood  the  man 
he  was  dealing  with,  interrupted  with  a  scornful  and 
impertinent  remark.  "Of  course  you  do  not  mean 
that,  Mr.  Bliss,"  said  the  young  reformer  with  im 
pressive  politeness,  "for  if  you  did  we  should  have  to 
put  you  out  in  the  street."  Even  in  those  early  days, 
when  Roosevelt  was  in  dead  earnest,  he  had  a  way 
of  pointing  his  forefinger  and  of  fixing  his  under  jaw 
which  the  person  whom  he  addressed  could  not  mis 
take.  That  forefinger  was  as  menacing  as  a  seven- 
shooter.  Mr.  Bliss,  with  all  the  prestige  of  a  success 
ful  career  at  the  bar  behind  him,  quickly  understood 
the  meaning  of  the  look,  the  gesture,  and  the  studied 
courtesy.  He  deemed  it  best  to  retract  and  apologize 
at  once;  and  it  was. 

Roosevelt  consented  to  run  for  a  third  term  and 
he  was  elected  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  vari 
ous  elements  which  united  to  defeat  him.  Such  a 
man  was  too  dangerous  to  be  acceptable  to  Jay 
Gould  and  the  "interests,"  to  Black-Horse  Cavalry, 
and  to  gangs  of  all  kinds  who  made  a  living,  di 
rectly  or  indirectly,  by  office-holding.  His  friends 
urged  him  for  the  speakership;  but  this  was  asking 


42  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

too  much  of  the  Democratic  majority,  and  besides, 
there  were  Republicans  who  had  winced  under  his 
scourge  the  year  before  and  were  glad  enough  to  de 
feat  him  now.  Occasionally,  some  kind  elderly  friend 
would  still  attempt  to  show  him  the  folly  of  his 
ways,  and  we  hear  reports  of  one  gentleman,  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Assembly  and  an  "old  friend,"  who  told 
him  that  the  great  concern  in  life  was  Business,  and 
that  lawyers  and  judges,  legislators  and  Congress 
men,  existed  to  serve  the  ends  of  Business.  "There  is 
no  politics  in  politics,"  said  this  moral  guide  and 
sage.  But  he  could  not  budge  the  young  man,  who 
believed  that  there  are  many  considerations  more 
important  than  the  political. 

During  this  third  year,  he  made  a  straight  and 
gallant  fight  to  improve  the  condition  under  which 
cigars  were  made  in  New  York  City.  By  his  own  in 
vestigation,  he  found  that  the  cigar-makers  lived  in 
tenements,  in  one  room,  perhaps  two,  with  their 
families  and  often  a  boarder;  these  made  the  cigars 
which  the  public  bought,  in  ignorance  of  the  facts. 
Roosevelt  proposed  that,  as  a  health  measure  which 
would  benefit  alike  the  cigar-makers  and  the  public, 
this  evil  practice  be  prohibited  and  that  the  police 
put  a  stop  to  it.  His  bill  passed  in  1884,  but  the 
next  year  the  Court  of  Appeals  declared  it  uncon 
stitutional,  because  it  deprived  the  tenement-house 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  43 

people  of  their  liberty  and  would  injure  the  owners  of 
the  tenements  if  they  were  not  allowed  to  rent  their 
property  to  these  tenants.  In  its  decision,  the  court 
indulged  in  nauseating  sanctimony  of  this  sort:  "It 
cannot  be  perceived  how  the  cigar-maker  is  to  be 
improved  in  his  health,  or  his  morals,  by  forcing  him 
from  his  home  and  its  hallowed  associations  and 
beneficent  influences  to  ply  his  trade  else  where. " 
This  was  probably  not  the  first  time  when  Roose 
velt  was  enraged  to  find  the  courts  of  justice  sleekly 
upholding  hot-beds  of  disease  and  vice,  on  the  pre 
tense  that  they  were  protecting  liberty.  Comment 
ing  on  this  episode,  Mr.  Washburn  well  says:  "As 
applied  to  the  kind  of  tenement  I  have  referred  to, 
this  reference  to  the  'home  and  its  hallowed  associ 
ations'  seems  grotesque  or  tragic  depending  upon 
the  point  of  view."  1 

Amid  work  of  this  kind,  fighting  and  fearless, 
constantly  adding  to  his  reputation  among  the  good 
as  a  high  type  of  reformer,  and  adding  to  the  detes 
tation  in  which  the  bad  held  him,  he  completed  his 
third  term.  He  resolutely  refused  to  serve  again  and 
declined  the  offers  which  were  pressed  upon  him  to 
run  for  Congress;  but  he  accepted  a  place  on  the 
Republican  National  Committee. 

The  death  of  his  mother  on  February  12,  1884, 

1  Washburn,  11. 


44  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

followed  in  twenty-four  hours  by  that  of  his  wife, 
who  died  after  the  birth  of  a  daughter,  brought  sor 
row  upon  Roosevelt  which  made  the  burden  of  his 
political  work  heavier  and  caused  him  to  consider 
how  he  should  readjust  his  life,  for  he  was  first  of  all 
a  man  of  deep  family  affections  and  the  loss  of  his 
wife  left  him  adrift. 

To  S.  N.  D.  North,  editor  of  the  Utica  Herald  and 
a  well-wisher  of  his,  he  wrote  from  Albany  on  April 
30,  1884: 

DEAR  MR.  NORTH:  I  wish  to  write  you  a  few  words  just  to 
thank  you  for  your  kindness  towards  me,  and  to  assure  you 
that  my  head  will  not  be  turned  by  what  I  well  know  was  a 
mainly  accidental  success.  Although  not  a  very  old  man,  I 
have  yet  lived  a  great  deal  in  my  life,  and  I  have  known  sor 
row  too  bitter  and  joy  too  keen  to  allow  me  to  become  either 
cast  down  or  elated  for  more  than  a  very  brief  period  over 
success  or  defeat. 

I  have  very  little  expectation  of  being  able  to  keep  on  in 
politics;  my  success  so  far  has  only  been  won  by  absolute 
indifference  to  my  future  career;  for  I  doubt  if  any  one  can 
realize  the  bitter  and  venomous  hatred  with  which  I  am  re 
garded  by  the  very  politicians  who  at  Utica  supported  me, 
under  dictation  from  masters  who  were  influenced  by  political 
considerations  that  were  national  and  not  local  in  their  scope. 
I  realize  very  thoroughly  the  absolutely  ephemeral  nature  of 
the  hold  I  have  upon  the  people,  and  the  very  real  and  posi 
tive  hostility  I  have  excited  among  the  politicians.  I  will 
not  stay  in  public  life  unless  I  can  do  so  on  my  own  terms; 
and  my  ideal,  whether  lived  up  to  or  not,  is  rather  a  high  one. 

For  very  many  reasons  I  will  not  mind  going  back  into 
private  life  for  a  few  years.  My  work  this  winter  has  been 


BREAKING  INTO  POLITICS  45 

very  harassing,  and  I  feel  both  tired  and  restless;  for  the 
next  few  months  I  shall  probably  be  in  Dakota,  and  I  think  I 
shall  spend  the  next  two  or  three  years  in  making  shooting 
trips,  either  in  the  Far  West  or  in  the  Northern  woods  —  and 
there  will  be  plenty  of  work  to  do  writing.1 

This  letter  is  a  striking  revelation  of  the  inmost 
intentions  of  the  man  of  twenty-five,  who  already 
stood  on  a  pinnacle  where  hard  heads  and  mature 
might  well  have  been  dizzy.  Evidently  he  knew  him 
self,  and  even  in  his  brief  experience  with  the  world 
he  understood  how  uncertain  and  evanescent  are  the 
winds  of  Fame.  If  he  had  ever  suffered  from  a 
"swelled  head,"  he  was  now  cured.  He  felt  the  empti 
ness  of  life's  prizes  when  the  dearest  who  should 
have  shared  them  with  him  were  dead. 

1  Douglas,  41-42. 


T 


CHAPTER  III 

AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS 

HE  year  1884  was  a  Presidential  year,  and 
Roosevelt  was  one  of  the  four  delegates-at- 
large l  of  New  York  State  to  the  Republican  National 
Convention  at  Chicago.  The  day  seemed  to  have 
come  for  a  new  birth  in  American  politics.  The 
Republican  Party  was  grown  fat  with  four  and 
twenty  years  of  power,  and  the  fat  had  overlain  and 
smothered  its  noble  aims.  The  party  was  arrogant, 
it  was  corrupt,  it  was  unashamed.  After  the  War, 
immense  projects  involving  huge  sums  of  money 
had  to  be  managed,  and  the  Republicans  spent  like 
spendthrifts  when  they  did  not  spend  like  embez 
zlers.  I  do  not  imply  that  the  Democrats  would  not 
have  done  the  same  if  they  had  been  in  command, 
or  that  there  were  not  among  them  many  who  saw 
where  their  profit  lay,  and  took  it.  The  quadrupeds 
which  feed  at  the  Treasury  trough  are  all  of  one 
species,  no  matter  whether  their  skins  be  black  or 
white. 

But  now  a  new  generation  was  springing  up,  with 

1  The  other  delegates-at-large  were  President  Andrew  D.  White  of 
Cornell  University,  J.  T.  Gilbert,  and  Edwin  Packard. 


AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  47 

its  leaven  of  hope  and  idealism  and  its  intuitive  faith 
in  honesty.  More  completely  than  any  one  else, 
Roosevelt  embodied  to  the  country  the  glorious 
promise  of  this  new  generation.  But  the  old  always  / 
dies  hard  after  it  has  long  been  the  blood  and  mind 
of  a  creed,  a  class,  or  a  party.  Terrible  also  is  the 
blind,  remorseless  sweep  of  a  custom  which  may 
have  sprung  up  from  good  soil,  not  less  than  one 
spawned  and  nurtured  in  iniquity.  Frankenstein 
laboriously  constructing  his  monster  seems  to  per 
sonify  society  at  its  immemorial  task  of  creating 
institutions;  each  institution  as  it  becomes  viable 
rends  its  creator. 

So  the  Republican  Party  lived  on  its  traditions, 
its  privileges,  its  appetites,  its  arrogance,  and  it 
refused  to  be  transmuted  by  its  youngest  members. 
In  1876  it  resorted  to  fraud  to  perpetuate  its  hold  on 
power.  Unchastened  in  1880,  three  hundred  and  six 
of  its  delegates  attempted  through  thick  and  thin 
to  force  the  nomination  of  General  Grant  for  a  third 
term.  The  chief  opposing  candidate  was  James  G. 
Elaine,  whose  unsavory  reputation,  however,  caused 
the  majority  of  the  convention  which  was  not  pledged 
to  Grant  to  repudiate  Elaine  and  to  choose  Garfield 
as  a  compromise.  Then  followed  four  years  of  fac 
tional  bitterness  in  the  party,  and  when  1884  came 
round,  Elaine's  admirers  pushed  him  to  the  front. 


48  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Elaine  himself  was  not  a  person  of  delicate  in 
stinct.  The  repudiation  which  he  had  twice  suffered 
by  the  better  element  of  the  Republican  Party, 
seemed  only  to  redouble  his  determination  to  be  its 
candidate.  He  had  much  personal  magnetism.  Both 
in  his  methods  and  ideals,  he  represented  perfectly 
the  politicians  who  during  the  dozen  years  after 
Lincoln's  death  flourished  at  Washington,  and  at 
every  State  capitol  in  the  Union.  By  the  luck  of  a 
catching  phrase  applied  to  him  by  Robert  G.  Inger- 
soll,  he  stood  before  the  imagination  of  the  country 
"as  the  plumed  knight,"  although  on  looking  back 
we  search  in  vain  for  any  trait  of  knightliness  or 
chivalry  in  him.  For  a  score  of  years  he  filled  the 
National  Congress,  House  and  Senate,  with  the 
bustle  of  his  egotism.  His  knightly  valor  consisted 
in  shaking  his  fist  at  the  " Rebel  Brigadiers"  and  in 
waving  the  "bloody  shirt,"  feats  which  seemed  to 
him  heroic,  no  doubt,  but  which  were  safe  enough, 
the  Brigadiers  being  few  and  Blaine's  supporters 
many.  But  where  on  the  Nation's  statute  book  do 
you  find  now  a  single  important  law  fathered  by 
him?  What  book  contains  one  of  his  maxims  for  men 
to  live  by?  Many  persons  still  live  who  knew  him, 
and  remember  him,  but  can  any  of  them  repeat  a 
saying  of  his  which  passes  current  on  the  lips  of 
Americans?  So  much  sound  and  fury,  so  much 


AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  49 

intrigue  and  sophistry,  and  self-seeking,  and  now 
the  silence  of  an  empty  sepulchre! 

The  better  element  of  the  Republican  Party  went 
to  the  Chicago  Convention  sworn  to  save  the  party 
from  the  disgrace  of  nominating  Elaine.  Roosevelt 
believed  the  charges  against  him,  and  by  all  that  he 
had  written  and  spoken,  and  by  his  political  career, 
he  was  bound  to  oppose  the  politician,  who,  as 
Speaker  of  the  National  House,  had,  by  the  showing 
of  his  own  letters,  taken  bribes  from  unscrupulous 
interests.  In  the  convention,  and  in  the  committee 
meetings,  and  in  the  incessant  parleys  which  pre 
pare  the  work  of  a  convention,  Roosevelt  fought  un 
waveringly  against  Elaine.  The  better  element  made 
Senator  George  F.  Edmunds  their  candidate,  and 
Roosevelt  urged  his  nomination  on  all  comers. 

When  the  convention  met,  Mr.  Lodge,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  nominated  J.  R.  Lynch,  a  negro  from 
Mississippi,  to  be  temporary  chairman,  thereby 
heading  off  Powell  Clayton,  a  veteran  Republican 
11  war-horse"  and  office-holder.  Roosevelt  had  the 
honor  —  and  it  was  an  honor  for  so  young  a  man  — 
to  make  a  speech,  which  proved  to  be  effective,  in 
Lynch's  behalf ;  and  when  the  vote  was  taken,  Lynch 
was  chosen  by  424  to  384.  This  first  victory  over  the 
Elaine  Machine,  the  Edmunds  men  hailed  as  a  good 
omen. 


50  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  was  chairman  of  the  New  York  State 
delegation.  The  whirling  days  and  nights  at  Chicago 
confirmed  his  position  as  a  national  figure,  but  he 
strove  in  vain  in  behalf  of  honesty.  The  majority 
of  the  delegates  would  not  be  gainsaid.  They  had 
come  to  Chicago  resolved  to  elect  James  G.  Elaine, 
and  no  other,  and  they  would  not  quit  until  they 
had  accomplished  this.  Pleas  for  morality  and  for 
party  concord  fell  on  deaf  ears,  as  did  warnings  of 
the  comfort  which  Elaine's  nomination  would  give 
to  their  enemies.  His  supporters  packed  the  great 
convention  hall,  and  when  his  name  was  put  in 
nomination,  there  followed  a  riot  of  cheers,  which 
lasted  the  better  part  of  an  hour,  and  foreboded  his 
success. 

As  had  been  predicted,  Elaine's  nomination  split 
the  Republican  Party.  Many  of  the  better  element 
came  out  for  Grover  Cleveland,  the  Democratic 
candidate,  who,  as  Governor  of  New  York,  had  dis 
played  unfailing  courage,  integrity,  and  intelligence. 
Others  again,  disgusted  with  many  of  the  principles 
and  leaders  of  both  parties,  formed  themselves  into 
a  special  group  or  party  of  Independents.  They  were 
hateful  alike  to  the  Bosses  who  controlled  the 
Republican  or  Democratic  organization;  and  Charles 
A.  Dana,  of  the  New  York  Sun,  who  took  care  never 
to  be  "on  the  side  of  the  angels,"  derisively  dubbed 


AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  51 

them  "mugwumps"  —a  title  which  may  carry  an 
honorable  meaning  to  posterity. 

I  was  one  of  these  Independents,  and  if  I  cite  my 
own  case,  it  is  not  because  it  was  of  any  importance 
to  the  public,  but  because  it  was  typical.  During 
the  days  of  suspense  before  the  Chicago  Convention 
met,  the  proposed  nomination  of  Elaine  weighed 
upon  me  like  a  nightmare.  I  would  not  admit  to 
myself  that  so  great  a  crime  against  American  ideals 
could  be  committed  by  delegates  who  represented 
the  standard  of  any  political  party,  and  were  drawn 
from  all  over  the  country.  I  cherished,  what  seems 
to  me  now  the  sadly  foolish  dream,  that  with  Roose 
velt  in  the  convention  the  abomination  could  not 
be  done.  I  thought  of  him  as  of  a  paladin  against 
whom  the  forces  of  evil  would  dash  themselves  to 
pieces.  I  thought  of  him  as  the  young  and  dauntless 
spokesman  of  righteousness  whose  words  would 
silence  the  special  pleaders  of  iniquity.  I  wrote  him 
and  besought  him  to  stand  firm. 

There  followed  the  days  of  suspense  when  the 
newspapers  brought  news  of  the  wild  proceedings 
at  the  convention,  and  for  me  the  shadow  deepened. 
Then  the  telegraph  reported  Elaine's  triumphant 
nomination.  I  waited,  we  all  waited,  to  learn  what 
the  delegates  who  opposed  him  intended  to  do.  One 
morning  a  dispatch  in  the  New  York  Tribune  an- 


52  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

nounced  that  Roosevelt  would  not  bolt.  That  very 
day  I  had  a  little  note  from  him  saying  that  he  had 
done  his  best  in  Chicago,  that  the  result  sickened 
him,  that  he  should,  however,  support  the  Republi 
can  ticket;  but  he  intended  to  spend  most  of  the 
summer  and  autumn  hunting  in  the  West. 

I  was  dumfounded.  I  felt  as  Abolitionists  felt 
after  Webster's  Seventh  of  March  speech.  My  old 
acquaintance,  our  trusted  leader,  whose  career  in 
the  New  York  Assembly  we  had  watched  with  an 
almost  holy  satisfaction,  seemed  to  have  strangely 
abandoned  the  fundamental  principles  which  we  and 
he  had  believed  in,  and  he  had  so  nobly  upheld. 
Whittier's  poem  "Ichabod"  seemed  to  have  been 
aimed  at  him,  especially  in  its  third  stanza: 

"Oh,  dumb  be  passion's  stormy  rage, 

When  he  who  might 
Have  lighted  up  and  led  his  age, 
Falls  back  in  night." 

Amid  the  lurid  gleams  and  heat  of  such  a  disap 
pointment,  men  cannot  see  clearly.  They  impute 
wrong  motives,  base  motives,  to  the  backslider.  In 
their  wrath,  they  assume  that  only  guilt  can  account 
for  his  defection. 

We  see  plainly  enough  now  that  we  misjudged 
Roosevelt.  We  assumed  that  because  he  was  with  us 
in  the  crusade  for  pure  politics,  he  agreed  with  us  in 


AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  53 

the  estimate  we  put  on  party  loyalty.  Independents 
and  mugwumps  felt  little  reverence  and  set  even 
less  value  on  political  parties,  which  we  regarded 
simply  as  instruments  to  be  used  in  carrying  out 
policies.  If  a  party  pursued  a  policy  contrary  to  our 
own,  we  left  it  as  we  should  leave  a  train  which  we 
found  going  in  the  wrong  direction.  There  was 
nothing  sacred  in  a  political  party. 

In  assuming  that  Roosevelt  must  have  coincided 
with  us  in  these  views,  we  did  him  wrong.  For  he 
held  then,  and  had  held  since  he  first  entered  poli 
tics,  that  party  transcended  persons,  and  that  only 
in  the  gravest  case  imaginable  was  one  justified  in 
bolting  his  party  because  one  disapproved  of  its 
candidate.  He  did  not  respect  Elaine;  on  the  con 
trary,  he  regarded  Elaine  as  a  bad  man:  but  he  be 
lieved  that  the  future  of  the  country  would  be  much 
safer  under  the  control  of  the  Republican  Party 
than  under  the  Democratic.  This  doctrine  exposes 
its  adherents  to  obvious  criticism,  if  not  to  suspicion. 
It  enables  persons  of  callous  consciences  to  support 
bad  platforms  and  bad  candidates  without  blush 
ing;  but  after  all,  who  shall  say  at  what  point  you 
are  justified  in  bolting  your  party?  The  decision 
must  rest  with  the  individual.  And  although  it  was 
hard  for  the  bolting  Independents  in  1884  to  accept 
the  tenet  that  party  transcends  persons,  it  was 


54  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt's  reason,  and  with  him  sincere.  Some  of 
his  colleagues  in  the  better  element  who  had  strug 
gled  as  he  had  to  defeat  Elaine,  and  then,  almost 
effusively,  exalted  Elaine  as  their  standard-bearer, 
were  less  fortunate  than  he  in  having  their  sincerity 
doubted.  George  William  Curtis,  Carl  Schurz, 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  and  other  Independents 
of  their  intransigent  temper  formed  a  Mugwump 
Party  and  this  turned  the  scale  in  electing  Grover 
Cleveland  President. 

There  used  to  be  much  discussion  as  to  who  per 
suaded  Roosevelt,  although  he  detested  Elaine,  to 
stand  by  the  Republicans  in  1884.  Those  were  the 
days  when  very  few  of  his  critics  understood  that, 
in  spite  of  his  youth,  he  had  already  thought  for 
himself  on  politics  and  had  reached  certain  conclu 
sions  as  to  fundamental  principles.  These  critics 
assumed  that  he  must  have  been  won  over  by  Henry 
Cabot  Lodge,  with  whom  he  had  been  intimate 
since  his  Harvard  days,  and  who  was  supposed  to 
be  his  political  mentor.  The  truth  is,  however,  that 
Roosevelt  had  formed  his  own  opinion  about  bolt 
ing,  and  that  he  and  Lodge,  in  discussing  possibili 
ties  before  they  went  to  the  Chicago  Convention,  had 
independently  agreed  that  they  must  abide  by  the 
choice  of  the  party  there.  They  held,  and  a  majority 
of  men  in  similar  position  still  hold,  that  delegates 


AT  THE  FIRST  CROSSROADS  55 

cannot  in  honor  abandon  the  nominee  chosen  by 
the  majority  in  a  convention  which  they  attend  as 
delegates.  If  the  rule,  "My  man,  or  nobody,"  were 
to  prevail,  there  would  be  no  use  in  holding  con 
ventions  at  all.  And  after  that  of  1884,  George 
William  Curtis,  one  of  the  chief  leaders  of  the  In 
dependents,  admitted  that  Roosevelt,  in  staying 
with  the  Republican  Party,  played  the  game  fairly. 
While  Curtis  himself  bolted  and  helped  to  organize 
the  Mugwumps,  Roosevelt,  after  his  trip  to  the 
West,  returned  to  New  York  and  took  a  vigorous 
part  in  the  campaign. 

Nevertheless,  Roosevelt 's  decision,  in  1884,  to 
cleave  to  the  Republican  Party  disappointed  many 
of  us.  We  thought  of  him  as  a  lost  leader.  Some 
critics  in  their  ignorance  were  inclined  to  impute 
false  motives  to  him;  but  in  time,  the  cloud  of  sus 
picion  rolled  away  and  his  action  in  that  crisis  was 
not  laid  up  against  him.  The  election  of  Cleveland 
relieved  him  of  seeming  perfunctorily  to  uphold 
Elaine. 


A 


CHAPTER  IV 

NATURE  THE  HEALER 

PERFECT  biography  would  show  definitely 
the  interaction  between  mind  and  body.  At 
present  we  can  only  guess  what  this  interaction 
may  be.  In  some  cases  the  relations  are  evident, 
but  in  most  they  are  vague  and  often  unsuspected. 
The  psychologists,  whose  pretensions  are  so  great 
and  whose  actual  results  are  still  so  small,  may  per 
haps  lead,  an  age  or  two  hence,  to  the  desired  knowl 
edge.  But  the  biographer  of  today  must  beware 
of  adopting  the  unripe  formulas  of  any  immature 
science.  Nevertheless,  he  must  watch,  study,  and 
record  all  the  facts  pertaining  to  his  subject,  al 
though  he  cannot  explain  them. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a  wonderful  example 
of  the  partnership  of  mind  and  body,  and  any  one 
who  writes  his  biography  in  detail  will  do  well  to 
pay  great  heed  to  this  intricate  interlocking.  I  can 
do  no  more  than  allude  to  it  here.  We  have  seen 
that  Roosevelt  from  his  earliest  days  had  a  quick 
mind,  happily  not  precocious,  and  a  weak  body 
which  prevented  him  from  taking  part  in  normal 
physical  activity  and  the  play  and  sport  of  boy- 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  57 

hood.  So  his  intellectual  life  grew  out  of  scale  to  his 
physical.  Then  he  set  to  work  by  the  deliberate  ap 
plication  of  will-power  to  develop  his  body,  and 
when  he  entered  Harvard  he  was  above  the  average 
youth  in  strength.  Before  he  graduated,  those  who 
saw  him  box  or  wrestle  beheld  a  fellow  somewhat 
slim  and  light,  but  unusually  well  set  up.  During 
the  succeeding  four  years  he  never  allowed  his  duties 
as  Assemblyman  to  encroach  upon  his  exercise; 
on  the  contrary,  he  played  regularly  and  he  played 
hard,  adding  new  kinds  of  sport  to  develop  new 
faculties  and  to  give  the  spice  of  variety.  He  rode 
to  hounds  with  the  Meadowbrook  Hunt;  he  took 
up  polo;  and  he  boxed  and  wrestled  as  in  his  college 
days. 

In  a  few  years  Roosevelt  became  physically  a 
very  powerful  man.  I  recall  my  astonishment  the 
first  time  I  saw  him,  after  the  lapse  of  several  years, 
to  find  him  with  the  neck  of  a  Titan  and  with 
broad  shoulders  and  stalwart  chest,  instead  of  the 
city-bred,  slight  young  friend  I  had  known  earlier. 
His  body  was  now  equal  to  any  burden  or  strain 
which  his  mind  might  have  to  endure;  and  hence 
forth  it  is  no  idle  fancy  that  suggests  a  perpetual 
competition  between  the  two.  Thanks  to  his  ex 
traordinary  will,  however,  he  never  allowed  his, 
body  to  get  control;  but,  as  appetite  comes  with 


58  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

eating,  so  his  strong  and  healthy  muscles  craved 
more  and  more  exercise  as  he  used  them.  And  now 
he  took  a  novel  way  to  gratify  them. 

Ever  since  his  first  taste  of  camp  life,  when  he 
went  into  the  Maine  Woods  under  the  guidance 
of  Bill  Sewall  and  Will  Dow,  Roosevelt  felt  the  lure 
of  wild  nature,  and  on  many  successive  seasons  he 
repeated  these  trips.  Gradually,  fishing  and  hunting 
in  the  wilderness  of  Maine  or  the  Adirondacks  did 
not  afford  him  enough  scope  for  his  brimming  vigor. 
He  decided  to  go  West,  to  the  real  West,  where 
great  game  and  Indians  still  survived,  and  the  con 
ditions  of  the  few  white  men  were  almost  as  primi 
tive  as  in  the  days  of  the  earliest  explorers.  When 
the  session  of  1883  adjourned,  he  started  for  North 
Dakota,  then  a  territory  with  a  few  settlers,  and 
among  the  Bad  Lands  on  the  Little  Missouri  he 
bought  an  interest  in  two  cattle  ranches,  the  Chim 
ney  Butte  and  the  Elkhorn.  The  following  year, 
after  the  Presidential  campaign  which  placed  Cleve 
land  in  the  White  House,  Roosevelt  determined, 
as  we  saw  in  the  letters  I  have  quoted,  to  abandon 
the  East  for  a  time  and  to  devote  himself  to  a  ranch 
man  's  life.  He  was  still  in  deep  grief  at  the  loss  of 
his  wife  and  of  his  mother;  there  was  no  immediate 
prospect  of  usefulness  for  him  in  politics:  the  con 
ventions  of  civilization,  as  he  knew  them  in  New 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  59 

York  City,  palled  upon  him;  a  sure  instinct  whis 
pered  to  him  that  he  must  break  away  and  seek 
health  of  body  and  heart  and  soul  among  the  re 
mote,  unspoiled  haunts  of  primeval  Nature.  For 
nearly  two  years,  with  occasional  intervals  spent 
in  the  East,  the  Elkhorn  Ranch  at  Medora  was  his 
home,  and  he  has  described  the  life  of  the  ranchman 
and  cow-puncher  in  pages  which  are  sure  to  be  read 
as  long  as  posterity  takes  any  interest  in  knowing 
about  the  transition  of  the  American  West  from 
wilderness  to  civilization.  He  shared  in  all  the  work 
of  the  ranch.  He  took  with  a  "frolic  welcome"  the 
humdrum  of  its  routine  as  well  as  its  excitements 
and  dangers.  He  says  that  he  does  not  believe  that 
there  was  ever  any  more  attractive  life  for  a  vigor 
ous  young  fellow  than  this,  and  assuredly  no  one 
else  has  glorified  it  as  Roosevelt  did  with  his  pen. 

At  one  time  or  another  he  performed  all  the  duties 
of  a  ranchman.  He  went  on  long  rides  after  the  cattle, 
he  rounded  them  up,  he  helped  to  brand  them  and 
to  cut  out  the  beeves  destined  for  the  Eastern  mar 
ket.  He  followed  the  herd  when  it  stampeded  during 
a  terrific  thunderstorm.  In  winter  there  was  often 
need  to  save  the  wandering  cattle  from  a  sudden 
and  deadly  blizzard.  The  log  cabin  or  " shack"  in 
which  he  dwelt  was  rough,  and  so  was  the  fare ;  com 
forts  were  few.  He  chopped  the  cottonwood  which 


6o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

they  used  for  fuel;  he  knew  how  to  care  for  the 
ponies;  and  once  at  least  he  passed  more  than 
twenty-four  hours  in  the  saddle  without  sleep.  Ac 
cording  to  the  best  standards,  he  says,  he  was  not 
a  fine  horseman,  but  it  is  clear  that  he  could  do 
everything  with  a  horse  which  had  to  be  done,  and 
that  he  never  stopped  from  fatigue.  When  they 
needed  fresh  meat,  he  would  shoot  it.  In  short,  he 
held  his  own  under  all  the  hardships  and  require 
ments  demanded  of  a  cowboy  or  ranchman. 

To  adapt  himself  to  these  wild  conditions  of  na 
ture  and  work  was,  however,  only  a  part  of  his  ex 
perience.  Even  more  dangerous  than  pursuing  a 
stampeding  herd  at  night  over  the  plains,  and  plung 
ing  into  the  Little  Missouri  after  it,  was  intercourse 
with  some  of  the  lawless  nomads  of  that  pioneer 
region.  Nomads  they  were,  though  they  might  set 
tle  down  to  work  for  a  while  on  one  ranch,  and  then 
pass  on  to  another;  the  sort  of  creatures  who  loafed 
in  the  saloons  of  the  little  villages  and  amused  them 
selves  by  running  amuck  and  shooting  up  the  town. 
These  men,  and  indeed  nearly  all  of  the  pioneers, 
held  the  man  from  the  civilized  East,  the  "  tender 
foot,  "  in  scorn.  They  took  it  for  granted  that  he  was 
a  weakling,  that  he  had  soft  ideas  of  life  and  was 
stuck-up  or  affected.  Now  Roosevelt  saw  that  in 
order  to  win  their  trust  and  respect,  he  must  show 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  61 

himself  equal  to  their  tasks,  a  true  comrade,  who 
accepted  their  code  of  courage  and  honor.  The  fact 
that  he  wore  spectacles  was  against  him  at  the  out 
set,  because  they  associated  spectacles  with  Eastern 
schoolmasters  and  incompetence.  They  called  him 
"Four  Eyes,"  at  first  with  derision,  but  they  soon 
discovered  that  in  him  they  had  no  " tenderfoot" 
to  deal  with.  He  shot  as  well  as  the  best  of  them;  he 
rode  as  far;  he  never  complained  of  food  or  tasks 
or  hardship;  he  met  every  one  on  equal  terms. 
Above  all,  he  left  no  doubt  as  to  his  courage.  He 
would  not  pick  a  quarrel  nor  would  he  avoid  one. 
Many  stories  of  his  prowess  circulated;  mere  heck 
ling,  or  a  practical  joke,  he  took  with  a  laugh;  as 
when  some  of  the  men  changed  the  saddle  from  his 
pony  to  a  bucking  broncho. 

But  he  knew  where  to  draw  the  line.  At  Medora, 
for  instance,  the  Marquis  de  Mores,  a  French  settler, 
assumed  the  attitude  of  a  feudal  proprietor.  Having 
been  the  first  to  squat  in  that  region  he  regarded 
those  who  came  later  as  interlopers,  and  he  and  his 
men  acted  very  sullenly.  They  even  carried  their 
ill-will  and  intimidation  to  the  point  of  shooting. 
In  due  time  the  Marquis  discovered  cause  for  griev 
ance  against  Roosevelt,  and  he  sent  him  a  letter 
warning  the  newcomer  that  if  the  cause  were  not 
removed  the  Marquis  knew  how  one  gentleman 


62  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

settles  a  dispute  with  another.  Roosevelt  despised 
dueling  as  a  silly  practice,  which  would  not  deter 
mine  justice  between  disputants;  but  he  knew  that 
in  Cowboy  Land  the  duel,  being  regarded  as  a  test 
of  courage,  must  not  be  ignored  by  him.  Any  man 
who  declined  a  challenge  lost  caste  and  had  better 
leave  the  country  at  once.  So  Roosevelt  within  an 
hour  dispatched  a  reply  to  the  surly  Marquis  saying 
that  he  was  ready  to  meet  him  at  any  time  and 
naming  the  rifle,  at  twelve  paces*  distance,  as  the 
weapon  that  he  preferred.  The  Marquis,  a  formida 
ble  swordsman  but  no  shot,  sent  back  word,  ex 
pressing  regret  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  mistaken 
his  meaning:  in  referring  to  "gentlemen  knowing 
how  to  settle  disputes,"  he  meant  that  of  course 
an  amicable  explanation  would  restore  harmony. 
Thenceforward,  he  treated  Roosevelt  with  effusive 
courtesy.  Perhaps  a  chill  ran  down  his  back  at 
the  thought  of  standing  up  before  an  antagonist 
twelve  paces  away  and  that  the  fighters  were  to 
advance  towards  each  other  three  paces  after  each 
round,  until  one  of  them  was  killed. 

So  Theodore  fought  no  duel  with  either  the  French 
Marquis  or  with  any  one  else  during  his  life  in  the 
West,  but  he  had  several  encounters  with  local  des 
peradoes.  One  cold  night  in  winter,  having  ridden 
far  and  knowing  that  he  could  reach  no  refuge  for 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  63 

many  hours,  he  unexpectedly  saw  a  light.  Going 
towards  it,  he  found  that  it  came  from  a  cabin  which 
served  as  saloon  and  tavern.  On  entering,  he  saw 
a  group  of  loafers  and  drinkers  who  were  apparently 
terrorized  by  a  big  fellow,  rather  more  than  half 
drunk,  who  proved  to  be  the  local  bully.  The  func 
tion  of  this  person  was  to  maintain  his  bullyship 
against  all  comers:  accordingly,  he  soon  picked  on 
Roosevelt,  who  held  his  peace  as  long  as  he  could. 
Then  the  rowdy,  who  grasped  his  pistols  in  his 
hands,  ordered  the  " four-eyed  tenderfoot"  to  come 
to  the  bar  and  set  up  drinks  for  the  crowd.  Roose 
velt  walked  deliberately  towards  him,  and  before 
the  bully  suspected  it,  the  "tenderfoot"  felled  him 
with  a  sledgehammer  blow.  In  falling,  a  pistol  went 
off  wide  of  its  mark,  and  the  bully  lay  in  a  faint. 
Before  he  could  recover,  Roosevelt  stood  over  him 
ready  to  pound  him  again.  But  the  bully  did  not 
stir,  and  he  was  carried  off  into  another  room.  The 
crowd  congratulated  the  stranger  on  having  served 
him  right. 

At  another  place,  there  was  a  "bad  man"  who 
surpassed  the  rest  of  his  fellows  in  using  foul  lan 
guage.  Roosevelt,  who  loathed  obscenity  as  he  did 
any  other  form  of  filth,  tired  of  this  bad  man's  talk 
and  told  him  very  calmly  that  he  liked  him  but  not 
his  nastiness.  Instead  of  drawing  his  gun,  as  the  by- 


64  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

standers  thought  he  would  do,  Jim  looked  sheepish, 
acknowledging  the  charge,  and  changed  his  tone. 
He  remained  a  loyal  friend  of  his  corrector. 

Cattle-thieves  and  horse-thieves  infested  the 
West  of  those  days.  To  steal  a  ranchman's  horse 
might  not  only  cause  him  great  annoyance,  but 
even  put  his  life  in  danger,  and  accordingly  the 
rascals  who  engaged  in  this  form  of  crime  ranked 
as  the  worst  of  all  and  received  no  mercy  when  they 
were  caught.  If  the  sheriff  of  the  region  was  lax,  the 
settlers  took  the  matter  into  their  own  hands,  en 
rolled  themselves  as  vigilantes,  hunted  the  thieves 
down,  hanged  those  whom  they  captured,  and  shot 
at  sight  those  who  tried  to  escape.  It  happened  that 
the  sheriff,  in  whose  jurisdiction  Medora  lay,  al 
lowed  so  many  thieves  to  get  off  that  he  was  sus 
pected  of  being  in  collusion  with  them.  The  ranch 
men  held  a  meeting  at  which  he  was  present  and 
Roosevelt  told  him  in  very  plain  words  their  com 
plaint  against  him  and  their  suspicions.  Though 
he  was  a  hot-tempered  man,  and  very  quick  on 
the  trigger,  he  showed  no  willingness  to  shoot  his 
bold  young  accuser;  he  knew,  of  course,  that  the 
ranchmen  would  have  taken  vengeance  on  him  in 
a  flash,  but  it  is  also  possible  that  he  recognized  the 
truth  of  Roosevelt's  accusation  and  felt  compunc 
tions. 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  65 

Some  time  later  Roosevelt  showed  how  a  zealous 
officer  of  the  law  —  he  was  the  acting  deputy  sheriff 
—  ought  to  behave.  He  had  a  boat  in  which  he  used 
to  cross  the  Little  Missouri  to  his  herds  on  the  other 
side.  One  day  he  missed  the  boat,  its  rope  having 
been  cut,  and  he  inferred  that  it  must  have  been 
stolen  by  three  cattle-thieves  who  had  been  oper 
ating  in  that  neighborhood.  By  means  of  it  they 
could  easily  escape,  for  there  was  no  road  along 
the  river  on  which  horsemen  could  pursue  them. 
Notwithstanding  this,  Roosevelt  resolved  that  they 
should  not  go  free.  In  three  days  Bill  Sewall  and 
Dow  built  a  flat,  water-tight  craft,  on  which  they 
put  enough  food  to  last  for  a  fortnight,  and  then  all 
three  started  downstream.  They  had  drifted  and 
poled  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  or  more,  before 
they  saw  a  faint  column  of  smoke  in  the  bushes 
near  the  bank.  It  proved  to  be  the  temporary  camp 
of  the  fugitives,  whom  they  quickly  took  prisoners, 
put  into  the  boat,  and  carried  another  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  down  the  river  to  the  nearest  town 
with  a  jail  and  a  court.  Going  and  coming,  Roose 
velt  spent  nearly  three  weeks,  not  to  mention  the 
hardships  which  he  and  his  trusty  men  suffered  on 
the  way;  but  he  had  served  Justice,  and  Justice 
must  be  served  at  any  cost.  When  the  story  be 
came  known,  the  admiration  of  his  neighbors  for 


66  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

his  pluck  and  persistence  rose ;  but  they  wondered 
why  he  took  the  trouble  to  make  the  extra  journey, 
in  order  to  deliver  the  prisoners  to  the  jail,  instead 
of  shooting  them  where  he  overtook  them. 

I  chronicle  these  examples  of  Roosevelt's  courage 
among  the  lawless  gangs  with  whom  he  was  thrown 
in  North  Dakota,  because  they  reveal  several  quali 
ties  which  came  to  be  regarded  as  peculiarly  Roose- 
veltian  during  the  rest  of  his  days.  We  are  apt  to 
speak  of  "mere"  physical  courage  as  being  inferior 
to  moral  courage;  and  doubtless  there  are  many 
heroes  unknown  to  the  world  who,  under  the  tor 
ture  of  disease  or  the  poignancy  of  social  injustice 
and  wrongs,  deserve  the  highest  crown  of  heroism. 
Men  who  would  lead  a  charge  in  battle  would  shrink 
from  denouncing  an  accepted  convention  or  even 
from  slighting  a  popular  fashion.  But  after  all,  the 
instinct  of  the  race  is  sound  in  revering  those  who 
give  their  lives  without  hesitation  or  regret  at  the 
point  of  deadly  peril,  or  offer  their  own  to  save  the 
lives  of  others. 

Roosevelt's  experience  established  in  him  that 
physical  courage  which  his  soul  had  aspired  to  in  boy 
hood,  when  the  consciousness  of  his  bodily  inferior 
ity  made  him  seem  shy  and  almost  timid.  Now  he 
had  a  bodily  frame  which  could  back  up  any  reso 
lution  he  might  take.  The  emergencies  in  a  ranch- 


NATURE  THE  HEALER  67 

man's  career  also  trained  him  to  be  quick  to  will, 
instantaneous  in  his  decisions,  and  equally  quick  in 
the  muscular  activity  by  which  he  carried  them  out. 
In  a  community  whose  members  gave  way  to  sudden 
explosions  of  passion,  you  might  be  shot  dead  un 
less  you  got  the  drop  on  the  other  fellow  first.  The 
anecdotes  I  have  repeated,  indicate  that  Roosevelt 
must  often  have  outsped  his  opponent  in  drawing. 
We  learn  from  them,  too,  that  he  was  far  from 
being  the  pugnacious  person  whom  many  of  his 
later  critics  insisted  that  he  was.  Having  given  am 
ple  proof  to  the  frontiersmen  that  he  had  no  fear, 
he  resolutely  kept  the  peace  with  them,  and  they  had 
no  desire  to  break  peace  with  him.  Bluster  and  swag 
ger  were  foreign  to  his  nature,  and  he  loathed  a  bully 
as  much  as  a  coward.  If  we  had  not  already  had  the 
record  of  his  three  years  in  the  Legislature,  in  which 
he  surprised  his  friends  by  his  wonderful  talent  for 
mixing  with  all  sorts  of  persons,  we  might  marvel 
at  his  ability  to  meet  the  cowboys  and  ranchmen, 
and  even  the  desperadoes,  of  the  Little  Missouri 
on  equal  terms,  to  win  the  respect  of  all  of  them, 
and  the  lifelong  devotion  of  a  few.  They  knew  that 
the  usual  tenderfoot,  however  much  he  might  wish 
to  fraternize,  was  fended  from  them  by  his  past, 
his  traditions,  his  civilized  life,  his  instincts;  but 
in  Roosevelt's  case,  there  was  no  gulf,  no  barrier. 


68  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Even  after  he  became  President  of  the  United  States, 
I  can  no  more  imagine  that  he  felt  embarrassment 
in  meeting  any  one,  high  or  low,  than  that  he  scru 
tinized  the  coat  on  a  man's  back  in  order  to  know 
how  to  treat  him. 

To  have  gained  solid  health,  to  have  gained  mas 
tery  of  himself,  and  to  have  put  his  social  nature 
to  the  severest  test  and  found  it  flawless,  were  valid 
results  of  his  life  on  the  Elkhorn  Ranch.  It  imparted 
to  him  also  a  knowledge  which  was  to  prove  most 
precious  to  him  in  the  unforeseen  future.  For  it 
taught  him  the  immense  diversity  of  the  people, 
and  consequently  of  the  interests,  of  the  United 
States.  It  gave  him  a  national  point  of  view,  in 
which  he  perceived  that  the  standards  and  desires 
of  the  Atlantic  States  were  not  all-inclusive  or 
final.  Yet  while  it  impressed  on  him  the  importance 
of  geographical  considerations,  it  impressed,  more 
deeply  still,  the  fact  that  there  are  moral  funda 
mentals  not  to  be  measured  by  geography,  or  by 
time,  or  by  race.  Lincoln  learned  this  among  the 
pioneers  of  Illinois;  in  similar  fashion  Roosevelt 
learned  it  in  the  Bad  Lands  of  Dakota  with  their 
pioneers  and  exiles  from  civilization,  and  from 
studying  the  depths  of  his  own  nature. 


O 


CHAPTER  V 

BACK  TO  THE  EAST  AND  LITERATURE 

NE  September  day  in  1886,  Roosevelt  was 
reading  a  New  York  newspaper  in  his  Elk- 
horn  cabin,  when  he  saw  that  he  had  been  nomi 
nated  by  a  body  of  Independents  as  candidate  for 
Mayor  of  New  York  City.  Whether  he  had  been 
previously  consulted  or  not,  I  do  not  know,  but  he 
evidently  accepted  the  nomination  as  a  call,  for  he 
at  once  packed  up  his  things  and  started  East.  The 
political  situation  in  the  metropolis  was  somewhat 
abnormal.  The  United  Democracy  had  nominated  for 
Mayor  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  a  merchant  of  high  stand 
ing,  one  of  those  decent  persons  whom  Tammany 
Hall  puts  forward  to  attract  respectable  citizens 
when  it  finds  itself  in  a  tight  place  and  likely  to  be 
defeated.  At  such  a  pinch,  Tammany  even  politely 
keeps  in  the  background  and  allows  it  to  appear 
that  the  decent  candidate  is  wholly  the  choice  of 
decent  Democrats:  for  the  Tammany  Tiger  wears, 
so  to  speak,  a  reversible  skin  which,  when  turned  in 
side  out,  shows  neither  stripes  nor  claws.  Mr.  Hew 
itt's  chief  opponent  was  Henry  George,  put  up 
by  the  United  Labor  Party,  which  had  suddenly 


70  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

swelled  into  importance,  and  had  discovered  in 
the  author  of  " Progress  and  Poverty"  and  in  the 
advocate  of  the  Single  Tax  a  candidate  wfydse  pri 
vate  character  was  generally  respected,  even  by 
those  who  most  hated  his  economic  teachings.  The 
mere  thought  that  such  a  Radical  should  be  pro 
posed  for  Mayor  scared,  not  merely  the  Big  Inter 
ests,  but  the  owners  of  real  estate  and  intangible 
property. 

Against  these  redoubtable  competitors,  the  In 
dependents  and  Republicans  pitted  Roosevelt,  hop 
ing  that  his  prestige  and  personal  popularity  would 
carry  the  day.  He  made  a  plucky  campaign,  but 
Hewitt  won,  with  Henry  George  second.  In  his 
letter  of  acceptance  he  went  straight  at  the  mark, 
which  was  that  the  government  of  the  city  was 
strictly  a  business  affair.  "I  very  earnestly  depre 
cate,  "  he  says,  "all  attempts  to  introduce  any  class 
or  caste  feeling  into  the  mayoralty  contest.  Labor 
ers  and  capitalists  alike  are  interested  in  having 
an  honest  and  economical  city  government,  and 
if  elected  I  shall  certainly  strive  to  be  the  repre 
sentative  of  all  good  citizens,  paying  heed  to  nothing 
whatever  but  the  general  well-being."  1  When  Tam 
many  reverses  its  hide,  the  Republicans  in  New  York 
City  need  not  expect  victory;  and  in  1886  Henry 

1  Riis,  101. 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  71 

George  drew  off  a  good  many  votes  which  would 
ordinarily  have  been  cast  for  Roosevelt. 

Nevertheless,  the  fight  was  worth  making.  It  re- 
introduced  him  to  the  public,  which  had  not  heard 
him  for  two  years,  and  it  helped  erase  from  men's 
memories  the  fact  that  he  had  supported  Elaine  in 
1884.  His  contest  with  Hewitt  and  George  set  him 
in  his  true  light — a  Republican  by  conviction,  a 
party  man,  also  by  conviction,  but  above  all  the 
fearless  champion  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
right,  in  its  struggle  against  economic  heresy  and 
political  corruption. 

The  election  over,  Roosevelt  went  to  Europe,  and 
on  December  2,  1886,  at  St.  George's,  Hanover 
Square,  London,  he  married  Miss  Edith  Kermit 
Carow,  of  New  York,  whom  he  had  known  since 
his  earliest  childhood,  the  playmate  of  his  sister 
Corinne,  the  little  girl  whose  photograph  had  stirred 
up  in  him  "homesickness  and  longings  for  the  past," 
when  he  was  a  little  boy  in  Paris.  Cecil  Spring-Rice, 
an  old  friend  (subsequently  British  Ambassador 
at  Washington),  was  his  groomsman,  and  being 
married  at  St.  George's,  Theodore  remarks,  "made 
me  feel  as  if  I  were  living  in  one  of  Thackeray's 
novels." 

Mrs.  Roosevelt's  father  came  of  Huguenot  stock, 
the  name  being  originally  Quereau;  the  first  French 


72  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

immigrants  of  the  family  having  migrated  to  New 
York  in  the  seventeenth  century  at  about  the  same 
time  as  Claes  van  Roosevelt.  Like  the  Roosevelts, 
the  Carows  had  so  freely  intermarried  with  English 
stock  in  America  that  the  French  origin  of  one  was 
as  little  discernible  in  their  descendants  as  was  the 
Dutch  origin  of  the  other.  Through  her  American 
line  Mrs.  Roosevelt  traced  back  to  Jonathan  Ed 
wards,  the  prolific  ancestor  of  many  persons  who 
emerged  above  the  common  level  by  either  their 
virtue  or  their  badness. 

After  spending  several  months  in  Europe,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  returned  and  settled  at  Oyster 
Bay,  Long  Island,  where  he  had  built,  not  long 
before,  a  country  house  on  Sagamore  Hill.  His  place 
there  comprised  many  acres  —  a  beautiful  country  of 
hill  and  hollow  and  fine  tall  trees.  The  Bay  made  in 
from  Long  Island  Sound  and  seemed  to  be  closed  by 
the  opposite  shore,  so  that  in  calm  weather  you  might 
mistake  it  for  a  lake.  This  home  was  thoroughly 
adapted  for  Roosevelt's  needs.  Being  only  thirty 
miles  from  New  York,  with  a  railroad  near  by,  con 
venient  but  not  intrusive,  it  gave  easy  access  to  the 
city,  but  was  remote  enough  to  discourage  casual 
or  undesired  callers.  It  had  sufficient  land  to  carry 
on  farming  and  to  sustain  the  necessary  horses  and 
domestic  cattle.  Mrs.  Roosevelt  supervised  it;  he 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  73 

simply  loved  it  and  got  distraction  from  his  more 
pressing  affairs;  if  he  had  chosen  to  withdraw  from 
these  he  might  have  devoted  himself  to  the  pleasing 
and  leisurely  life  of  a  gentleman  farmer. 

For  a  while  his  chief  occupation  was  literary. 
Into  this  he  pitched  with  characteristic  energy. 
His  innate  craving  for  self-expression  could  never 
be  satiated  by  speaking  alone,  and  now,  since  he 
filled  no  public  position  which  would  be  a  cause  or 
perhaps  an  excuse  for  speaking,  he  wrote  with  all 
the  more  enthusiasm. 

Although  he  was  less  than  seven  years  out  of 
college,  his  political  career  had  given  him  a  na 
tional  reputation,  which  helped  and  was  helped  by 
the  vogue  of  his  writings.  The  American  public 
had  come  to  perceive  that  Theodore  Roosevelt 
could  do  nothing  commonplace.  The  truth  was, 
that  he  did  many  things  that  other  men  did  which 
ceased  to  be  commonplace  only  when  he  did  them. 
Scores  of  other  young  men  went  on  hunting  trips 
after  big  game  in  the  Rockies  or  the  Sel kirks,  and 
even  ranching  had  been  engaged  in  by  the  enter 
prising  and  the  adventurous,  who  hoped  to  find  it 
a  short  way  to  a  fortune.  But  whether  as  ranch 
man  or  as  hunter,  Roosevelt  was  better  known  than 
all  the  rest.  His  skill  in  describing  his  experiences 
no  doubt  largely  accounted  for  this;  but  the  fact 


74  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

that  the  experiences  were  his,  was  the  ultimate  ex 
planation. 

Roosevelt  began  to  write  very  early.  He  thought 
that  the  instruction  in  rhetoric  which  he  received 
at  Harvard  enlightened  him,  and  during  his  Senior 
year  he  began  the  "  History  of  the  Naval  War  of 
1812,"  which  he  completed  and  published  in  1882. 
This  work  at  once  won  recognition  for  him,  and  it 
differed  from  the  traditional  accounts,  embedded 
in  the  school  histories  of  the  United  States,  in  doing 
full  justice  to  the  British  naval  operations.  Probably, 
for  the  first  time,  our  people  realized  that  the  War 
of  1812  had  not  been  a  series  of  victories,  startling 
and  irresistible,  for  the  American  Navy.  Nearly  ten 
years  later,  Roosevelt  in  the  "  Winning  of  the  West" 
made  his  second  excursion  into  history.  These 
volumes,  which  eventually  numbered  six,  are  re 
garded  by  experts  in  the  subject  as  of  great  value, 
and  I  suppose  that  in  them  Roosevelt  did  more  than 
any  other  writer  to  popularize  the  study  of  the  his 
torical  origin  and  development  of  the  vast  region 
west  of  the  Alleghanies  which  now  forms  a  vital  part 
of  the  American  Republic.  One  attribute  of  a  real 
historian  is  the  power  to  discern  the  structural  or 
pregnant  quality  of  historic  periods  and  episodes; 
and  this  power  Roosevelt  displayed  in  choosing 
both  the  War  of  1812  and  the  Winning  of  the  West. 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  75 

In  his  larger  history  Roosevelt  had  a  swift,  ener 
getic,  and  direct  style.  He  never  lacked  for  ideas. 
Descriptions  came  to  him  with  exuberant  details 
of  which  he  selected  enough  to  leave  his  reader 
with  the  feeling  that  he  had  looked  on  a  vivid  and 
accurate  picture.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  portrait 
of  Daniel  Boon  which  seems  remarkably  lifelike,  be 
cause  I  remember  how  difficult  other  writers  find  it 
to  individualize  most  of  the  figures  of  the  pioneers. 

The  backwoodsmen,  he  says,  "all  tilled  their  own 
clearings,  guiding  the  plow  among  the  charred 
stumps  left  when  the  trees  were  chopped  down  and 
the  land  burned  over,  and  they  were  all,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  hunters.  With  Boon,  hunting  and  explora 
tion  were  passions,  and  the  lonely  life  of  the  wilder 
ness,  with  its  bold,  wild  freedom,  the  only  existence 
for  which  he  really  cared.  He  was  a  tall,  spare, 
sinewy  man,  with  eyes  like  an  eagle's,  and  muscles 
that  never  tired;  the  toil  and  hardship  of  his  life 
made  no  impress  on  his  iron  frame,  unhurt  by  in 
temperance  of  any  kind,  and  he  lived  for  eighty-six 
years,  a  backwoods  hunter  to  the  end  of  his  days. 
His  thoughtful,  quiet,  pleasant  face,  so  often  por 
trayed,  is  familiar  to  every  one;  it  was  the  face  of 
a  man  who  never  blustered  or  bullied,  who  would 
neither  inflict  nor  suffer  any  wrong,  and  who  had  a 
limitless  fund  of  fortitude,  endurance,  and  indomit- 


76  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

able  resolution  upon  which  to  draw  when  fortune 
proved  adverse.  His  self-command  and  patience, 
his  daring,  restless  love  of  adventure,  and,  in  time  of 
danger,  his  absolute  trust  in  his  own  powers  and  re 
sources,  all  combined  to  render  him  peculiarly  fitted 
to  follow  the  career  of  which  he  was  so  fond."  1 

Roosevelt  contributed  two  volumes  to  the  Amer 
ican  Statesmen  Series,  one  on  Thomas  Hart  Benton 
in  1886,  and  the  other  on  Gouverneur  Morris  in 
1887.  The  environment  and  careers  of  these  two 
men  —  the  Missouri  Senator  of  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  the  New  York  financier  of 
the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  —  afforded  him  scope 
for  treating  two  very  diverse  subjects.  He  was  him 
self  rooted  in  the  old  New  York  soil  and  he  had  come, 
through  his  life  in  the  West,  to  divine  the  conditions 
of  Benton's  days.  Once  again,  many  years  later 
(1900)  he  tried  his  hand  at  biography,  taking  Oliver 
Cromwell  for  his  hero,  and  making  a  summary, 
impressionistic  sketch  of  him.  Besides  the  interest 
this  biography  has  for  students  of  Cromwell,  it  has 
also  interest  for  students  of  Roosevelt,  for  it  is  a 
specimen  of  the  sort  of  by-products  he  threw  off 
in  moments  of  relaxation. 

More  characteristic  than  such  excursions  into 
history  and  biography,  however,  are  his  many  books 

1  Winning  of  the  West,  I,  137,  138  (ed.  1889). 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  77 

describing  ranch  life  and  hunting.  In  the  former, 
he  gives  you  truthful  descriptions  of  the  men  of  the 
West  as  he  saw  them,  and  in  the  latter  he  recounts 
his  adventures  with  elk  and  buffalo,  wolves  and 
bears.  The  mere  trailing  and  killing  of  these  creatures 
do  not  satisfy  him.  He  studies  with  equal  zest  their 
haunts  and  their  habits.  The  naturalist  in  him, 
which  we  recognized  in  his  youth,  found  this  vent 
in  his  maturity.  And  long  years  afterward,  on  his 
expeditions  to  Africa  and  to  Brazil  he  dealt  even 
more  exuberantly  with  the  natural  history  of  the 
countries  which  he  visited. 

Two  other  classes  of  writings  make  up  Roose 
velt's  astonishing  output.  He  gathered  his  essays 
and  addresses  into  half  a  dozen  volumes,  remarkable 
alike  for  the  wide  variety  of  their  subjects,  and  for 
the  vigor  with  which  he  seized  on  each  subject  as  if 
it  was  the  one  above  all  others  which  most  absorbed 
him.  Finally,  skim  the  collection  of  his  official  mes 
sages,  as  Commissioner,  as  Governor,  or  as  Presi 
dent,  and  you  will  discover  that  he  had  the  gift  of 
infusing  life  and  color  into  the  usually  drab  and 
cheerless  wastes  of  official  documents. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  make  a  literary  appraisal 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt's  manifold  works,  but  I  am 
struck  by  the  fact  that  our  professional  critics  ig 
nore  him  entirely  in  their  summaries  or  histories  of 


78  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

recent  American  literature.  As  I  re-read,  after  twenty 
years,  and  in  some  cases  after  thirty  years,  books 
of  his  which  made  a  stir  on  their  appearance,  I  am 
impressed,  not  only  by  the  excellence  of  their  writ 
ing,  but  by  their  lasting  quality.  If  he  had  not  done 
so  many  other  things  of  greater  importance,  and 
done  them  supremely,  he  would  have  secured  lasting 
fame  by  his  books  on  hunting,  ranching,  and  ex 
ploration.  No  other  American  compares  with  him, 
and  I  know  of  no  other,  in  English  at  least,  who  has 
made  a  contribution  in  these  fields  equal  to  his. 

Throughout  these  eight  or  ten  volumes  he  proves 
himself  to  be  one  of  those  rare  writers  who  see  what 
they  write.  As  in  the  case  of  Tennyson,  than  whom 
no  English  poet,  in  spite  of  nearsightedness,  has 
observed  so  minutely  the  tiniest  details  of  form 
or  the  faintest  nuance  of  color,  so  the  lack  of  normal 
vision  did  not  prevent  Roosevelt  from  being  the 
closest  of  observers.  He  was  also,  by  the  way,  a  good 
shot  with  rifle  or  pistol.  If  you  read  one  of  his  chap 
ters  in  " Hunting  the  Grizzly"  and  ask  yourself 
wherein  its  animation  and  attraction  lie,  you  will 
find  that  it  is  because  every  sentence  and  every  line 
report  things  seen.  He  does  not,  like  the  Realist,  try 
to  get  a  specious  lifelikeness  by  heaping  up  banal 
and  commonplace  facts;  he  selects.  His  imagina 
tion  reminds  one  of  the  traveling  spark  which  used 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  79 

to  run  along  the  great  chandelier  in  the  theatre,  and 
light  each  jet,  so  that  its  passage  seemed  a  flight 
from  point  to  point  of  brilliance.  Wherever  he  fo 
cuses  his  survey  a  spot  glows  vividly. 

The  eye,  the  master  sense  of  the  mind,  thus  domi 
nates  him,  and  I  think  that  we  shall  trace  to  its 
mastery  much  of  the  immediate  power  which  he 
exerted  by  his  writings  and  speeches  on  public,  so 
cial,  and  moral  topics.  He  struck  off,  in  the  heat  of 
composition  or  of  speaking,  phrases  and  similes 
which  millions  caught  up  eagerly  and  made  as  famil 
iar  as  household  words.  He  even  remembered  from 
his  extensive  reading  some  item  which,  when  applied 
by  him  to  the  affair  of  the  moment,  acquired  new 
pertinence  and  a  second  life.  Thus,  Bunyan's  "  muck- 
raker"  lives  again;  thus,  "the  curse  of  Meroz,"  and 
many  another  Bible  reference,  springs  up  with  a 
fresh  meaning. 

No  doubt  the  purist  will  find  occasional  lapses 
in  taste  or  expression,  and  the  quibbling  peddler 
of  rhetoric  will  gloat  over  some  doubtful  construc 
tion;  but  neither  purist  nor  peddler  of  rhetoric 
has  ever  been  able  in  his  writing  to  display  the  ease, 
the  rush,  the  naturalness,  the  sparkle  which  were 
as  genuine  in  Roosevelt  as  were  the  features  of  his 
face.  On  reading  these  pages,  which  have  escaped 
the  attention  of  the  professional  critics,  I  wonder 


8o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

whether  they  may  not  have  a  fate  similar  to  Defoe's; 
for  Defoe  also  was  read  voraciously  by  his  con 
temporaries,  his  pamphlets  made  a  great  rustle  in 
their  time,  and  then  the  critics  turned  to  other 
and  spicier  writers.  But  in  due  season,  other  critics, 
as  well  as  the  world,  made  the  discovery  that  only 
a  genius  could  have  produced  Defoe's  "every-day," 
" commonplace"  style. 

His  innate  vigor,  often  swelling  into  vehemence, 
marks  also  Roosevelt's  political  essays,  and  yet  he 
had  time  for  reflection,  and  if  you  examine  closely 
even  some  of  his  combative  passages,  you  will  see 
that  they  do  not  spring  from  sudden  anger  or  scorn, 
but  from  a  conviction  which  has  matured  slowly  in 
him.  He  had  not  the  philosophic  calm  which  formed 
the  background  of  Burke's  political  masterpieces, 
but  he  had  the  clearness,  the  simplicity,  by  which 
he  could  drive  home  his  thoughts  into  the  minds 
of  the  multitude.  Burke  spoke  and  wrote  for  thou 
sands  and  for  posterity;  Roosevelt  addressed  mil 
lions  for  the  moment,  and  let  posterity  do  what  it 
would  with  his  burning  appeals  and  invectives.  He 
was  not  so  absolutely  self-effacing  as  Lincoln,  but 
I  think  that  he  realized  to  the  full  the  meaning  of 
Lincoln's  phrase,  "the  world  will  little  note,  nor 
long  remember  what  we  may  say  here/'  and  that 
he  would  have  made  it  his  motto.  For  he,  like 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
ROOSEVELT  THE  HUNTER 
1905 


BACK  TO  THE  EAST  81 

all  truly  great  statesmen,  was  so  immensely  con 
cerned  in  winning  today's  battle,  that  he  wasted 
no  time  in  speculating  what  tomorrow,  or  next 
year,  or  next  century  would  say  about  it. 

Mysticism,  the  recurrent  fad  which  indicates  that 
its  victims  neither  see  clear  nor  think  straight,  could 
not  spread  its  veils  over  him.  The  man  who  visu 
alizes  is  safe  from  that  intellectual  weakness  and 
moral  danger.  But  although  Roosevelt  felt  the  sway 
of  the  true  emotions,  he  allowed  only  his  intimates 
to  know  what  he  held  most  intimate  and  sacred. 
He  felt  also  the  charm  of  beauty,  and  over  and  over 
again  in  his  descriptions  of  hunting  and  riding  in 
the  West,  he  pauses  to  recall  beautiful  scenery  or 
some  unusual  bit  of  landscape ;  and  even  in  remem 
bering  his  passage  down  the  River  of  Doubt,  when 
he  came  nearer  to  death  than  he  ever  came  until  he 
died,  in  spite  of  tormenting  pain  and  desperate  anx 
iety  for  his  companions,  he  mentions  more  than  once 
the  loveliness  of  the  river  scene  or  of  the  massed 
foliage  along  its  banks.  Naturalist  though  he  was, 
bent  first  on  studying  the  habits  of  birds  and  ani 
mals,  he  yet  took  keen  delight  in  the  iridescent 
plumage  or  graceful  form  or  the  beautiful  fur  of  bird 
and  beast. 

The  quality  of  a  writer  can  best  be  judged  by  read 
ing  a  whole  chapter,  or  two  or  three,  of  his  book, 


82  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

but  sometimes  he  reveals  a  phase  of  himself  in  a 
single  paragraph.  Read,  for  instance,  this  brief  ex 
tract  from  Roosevelt's  "  Through  the  Brazilian 
Wilderness,"  if  you  would  understand  some  of  the 
traits  which  I  have  just  alluded  to.  It  comes  at  the 
end  of  his  long  and  dismaying  exploration  of  the 
River  of  Doubt,  when  the  party  was  safe  at  last, 
and  the  terrible  river  was  about  to  flow  into  the 
broad,  lakelike  Amazon,  and  Manaos  was  almost 
in  sight,  where  civilization  could  be  laid  hold  on 
again,  Manaos,  whence  the  swift  ships  went  steaming 
towards  the  Atlantic  and  the  Atlantic  opened  a 
clear  path  home.  He  says: 

The  North  was  calling  strongly  the  three  men  of  the 
North  —  Rocky  Dell  Farm  to  Cherrie,  Sagamore  Hill  to  me; 
and  to  Kermit  the  call  was  stronger  still.  After  nightfall  we 
could  now  see  the  Dipper  well  above  the  horizon  —  upside 
down  with  the  two  pointers  pointing  to  a  North  Star  below 
the  world's  rim;  but  the  Dipper,  with  all  its  stars.  In  our  home 
country  spring  had  now  come,  the  wonderful  Northern  spring 
of  long,  glorious  days,  of  brooding  twilight,  of  cool,  delightful 
nights.  Robin  and  bluebird,  meadow-lark  and  song-sparrow 
were  singing  in  the  mornings  at  home ;  the  maple  buds  were 
red;  windflowers  and  bloodroot  were  blooming  while  the 
last  patches  of  snow  still  lingered ;  the  rapture  of  the  hermit- 
thrush  in  Vermont,  the  serene  golden  melody  of  the  wood- 
thrush  on  Long  Island,  would  be  heard  before  we  were  there 
to  listen.  Each  was  longing  for  the  homely  things  that  were 
so  dear  to  him,  for  the  home  people  who  were  dearer  still,  and 
for  the  one  who  was  dearest  of  all.1 

1  Through  the  Brazilian  Wilderness,  320. 


CHAPTER  VI 

APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS 

I  HAVE  said  that  Roosevelt  devoted  the  two 
years  after  he  came  back  to  New  York  to  writ 
ing,  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  writing 
alone  busied  him.  He  was  never  a  man  who  did  or 
would  do  only  one  thing  at  a  time.  His  immense 
energy  craved  variety,  and  in  variety  he  found  recre 
ation.  Now  that  the  physical  Roosevelt  had  caught 
up  in  relative  strength  with  the  intellectual,  he  could 
take  what  holidays  requiring  exhaustless  bodily 
vigor  he  chose.  The  year  seldom  passed  now  when 
he  did  not  go  West  for  a  month  or  two.  Bill  Sewall 
and  Wilmot  Dow  were  established  with  their  families 
on  the  Elkhorn  Ranch,  which  Roosevelt  continued 
to  own,  although,  I  believe,  like  many  ranches  at 
that  period,  it  ceased  to  be  a  good  investment. 
Sometimes  he  made  a  hurried  dash  to  southern 
Texas,  or  to  the  Selkirks,  or  to  Montana  in  search 
of  new  sorts  of  game.  In  the  mountains  he  indulged 
in  climbing,  but  this  was  not  a  favorite  with  him 
because  it  offered  less  sport  in  proportion  to  the 
fatigue.  While  he  was  still  a  young  man  he  had  gone 
up  the  Matterhorn  and  Mont  Blanc,  feats  which 


84  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

still  required  endurance,  although  they  did  not  in 
volve  danger. 

While  we  think  of  him,  therefore,  as  dedicating 
himself  to  his  literary  work  —  the  "Winning  of  the 
West"  and  the  accounts  of  ranch  life  —  we  must 
remember  that  he  had  leisure  for  other  things.  He 
watched  keenly  the  course  of  politics,  for  instance, 
and  in  1888  when  the  Republicans  nominated  Ben 
jamin  Harrison  as  their  candidate  for  President, 
Roosevelt  supported  him  effectively  and  took  rank 
with  the  foremost  Republican  speakers  of  the  cam 
paign.  After  his  election  Harrison,  who  both  recog 
nized  Roosevelt's  great  ability  and  felt  under  obliga 
tion  to  him,  wished  to  offer  him  the  position  of  an 
under-secretary  in  the  State  Department ;  but  Elaine, 
who  was  slated  for  Secretary  of  State,  had  no  liking 
for  the  young  Republican  whose  coolness  in  1884  he 
had  not  forgotten.  So  Harrison  invited  Roosevelt  to 
be  a  Civil  Service  Commissioner.  The  position  had 
never  been  conspicuous;  its  salary  was  not  large;  its 
duties  were  of  the  routine  kind  which  did  not  greatly 
tax  the  energies  of  the  Commissioners,  who  could 
never  hope  for  fame,  but  only  for  the  approval  of 
their  own  consciences  for  whatever  good  work  they 
did.  The  Machine  Republicans,  whether  of  national 
size,  or  of  State  or  municipal,  were  glad  to  know  that 
Roosevelt  would  be  put  out  of  the  way  in  that  office. 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS         85 

They  already  thought  of  him  as  a  young  man  dan 
gerous  to  all  Machines  and  so  they  felt  the  prudence 
of  bottling  him  up.  To  make  him  a  Civil  Service 
Commissioner  was  not  exactly  so  final  as  chloro 
forming  a  snarling  dog  would  be,  but  it  was  a  strong 
measure  of  safety.  Theodore's  friends,  on  the  other 
hand,  advised  him  against  accepting  the  appoint 
ment,  because,  they  said,  it  would  shelve  him,  polit 
ically,  use  up  his  brains  which  ought  to  be  spent  on 
higher  work,  and  allow  the  country  which  was  just 
beginning  to  know  him  to  forget  his  existence.  Men 
drop  out  of  sight  so  quickly  at  Washington  unless 
they  can  stand  on  some  pedestal  which  raises  them 
above  the  multitude. 

The  Optimist  of  the  future,  to  hasten  whose  com 
ing  we  are  all  making  the  world  so  irresistibly  attrac 
tive,  will  be  endowed,  let  us  hope,  with  a  sense  of 
humor.  With  that,  he  can  read  history  as  a  cosmic 
joke-book,  and  not  as  the  Biography  of  the  Devil, 
as  many  of  us  moderns,  besides  Jean  Paul,  have 
found  it.  How  long  it  has  taken,  and  how  much  blood 
has  been  spilt  before  this  or  that  most  obvious  folly 
has  been  abolished !  With  what  absurd  tenacity  have 
men  flown  in  the  face  of  reason  and  flouted  common 
sense!  So  our  Optimist,  looking  into  the  conditions 
which  made  Civil  Service  Reform  imperative,  will 
shed  tears  either  of  pity  or  of  laughter. 


86  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

As  long  ago  as  the  time  of  the  cave-dweller,  who 
was  clothed  in  shaggy  hair  instead  of  in  broadcloth 
or  silk,  prehistoric  man  learned  that  the  best  arrow 
or  spear  was  that  tipped  with  the  best  piece  of  flint. 
In  brief,  to  do  good  work,  you  must  have  good  tools. 
Translated  into  the  terms  of  today,  this  means  that 
the  expert  or  specialist  must  be  preferred  to  the  un 
trained.  In  nearly  all  walks  of  life  this  truth  was 
taken  for  granted,  except  in  affairs  connected  with 
government  and  administration.  A  President  might 
be  elected,  not  because  he  was  experienced  in  these 
matters,  but  because  he  had  won  a  battle,  or  was  the 
compromise  candidate  between  two  other  aspirants. 
As  it  was  with  Presidents,  so  with  the  Cabinet  offi 
cers,  Congressmen,  and  State  and  city  officials.  Fit 
ness  being  ignored  as  a  qualification  to  office,  made 
it  easy  for  favoritism  and  selfish  motives  to  deter 
mine  the  appointment  of  the  army  of  employees  re 
quired  in  the  bureaus  and  departments.  That  good 
old  political  freebooter,  Andrew  Jackson,  merely 
put  into  words  what  his  predecessors  had  put  into 
practice:  "To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils."  And 
since  his  time,  more  than  one  upright  and  intelligent 
theorist  on  government  has  supported  the  Party 
System  even  to  the  point  where  the  enjoyment  of 
the  spoils  by  the  victors  seems  justified. 

The  "spoils"  were  the  salaries  paid  to  the  lower 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS        87 

grade  of  placemen  and  women  —  salaries  usually 
not  very  large,  but  often  far  above  what  those  per 
sons  could  earn  in  honest  competition.  As  the  money 
came  out  of  the  public  purse,  why  worry?  And  how 
could  party  enthusiasm  during  the  campaign  and  at 
the  polls  be  kept  up,  if  some  of  the  partisans  might 
not  hope  for  tangible  rewards  for  their  services? 
Many  rich  men  sat  in  Congress,  and  the  Senate  be 
came,  proverbially,  a  millionaires'  club.  But  not  one 
of  these  plutocrats  conducted  the  private  business 
which  made  him  rich  by  the  methods  to  which  he 
condemned  the  business  administration  of  the  gov 
ernment.  He  did  not  fill  his  counting-room  with 
shirkers  and  incompetents;  he  did  not  find  sinecures 
for  his  wife's  poor  relations;  he  did  not  pad  his 
payroll  with  parasites  whose  characteristics  were 
an  itching  palm  and  an  unconquerable  aversion  to 
work.  He  knew  how  to  select  the  quickest,  cleverest, 
most  industrious  assistants,  and  through  them  he 
prospered. 

That  a  man  who  had  sworn  to  uphold  and  direct 
his  government  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  should  have 
the  conscience  to  treat  his  country  as  he  did  not 
treat  himself,  can  be  easily  explained:  he  had  no 
conscience.  Fashion,  like  a  local  anaesthetic,  deadens 
the  sensitiveness  of  conscience  in  this  or  that  spot; 
and  the  prevailing  fashion  under  all  governments, 


88  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

autocratic  or  democratic,  has  permitted  the  waste 
and  even  the  dishonest  application  of  public  funds. 
These  anomalies  at  last  roused  the  sense  of  humor 
of  some  of  our  citizens,  just  as  the  injustice  and 
dishonesty  which  the  system  embodied  roused  the 
moral  sense  of  others;  and  the  Reform  of  the  Civil 
Service  —  a  dream  at  first,  and  then  a  passionate 
cause  which  the  ethical  would  not  let  sleep  —  came 
into  being.  But  to  the  politicians  of  the  old  type,  the 
men  of  "inflooence"  and  "pull,"  the  project  seemed 
silly.  They  ridiculed  it,  and  they  expected  to  make 
it  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  American  people,  by 
calling  it  "Snivel"  Service  Reform.  Zealots,  how 
ever,  cannot  be  silenced  by  mockery.  The  contention 
that  fitness  should  have  something  to  do  in  the 
choice  of  public  servants  was  effectively  confirmed 
by  the  scientific  departments  of  the  government. 
The  most  shameless  Senator  would  not  dare  to  pro 
pose  his  brother's  widow  to  lead  an  astronomical 
expedition,  or  to  urge  the  appointment  of  the  ward 
Boss  of  his  city  as  Chairman  of  the  Coast  Survey. 
So  the  American  people  perceived  that  there  were 
cases  in  which  the  Spoils  System  did  not  apply.  The 
reformers  pushed  ahead;  Congress  at  last  took  no 
tice,  and  a  law  was  passed  bringing  a  good  many 
appointees  in  the  Post-Office  and  other  departments 
under  the  Merit  System.  The  movement  then  gained 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS         89 

ground  slowly  and  the  spoilsmen  began  to  foresee 
that  if  it  spread  to  the  extent  which  seemed  likely, 
it  would  deprive  them  of  much  of  their  clandestine 
and  corrupting  power.  Senator  Roscoe  Conkling,  one 
of  the  wittiest  and  most  brazen  of  these,  remarked, 
that  when  Dr.  Johnson  told  Boswell  that  "patriot 
ism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel,"  he  had  not 
sounded  the  possibilities  of  "reform." 

The  first  administration  of  President  Cleveland, 
who  was  a  great,  irremovable  block  of  stubbornness 
in  whatever  cause  he  thought  right,  gave  invaluable 
help  to  this  one.  The  overturn  of  the  Republican 
Party,  after  it  had  held  power  for  twenty-four  years, 
entailed  many  changes  in  office  and  in  all  classes  of 
office-holders.  Cleveland  had  the  opportunity,  there 
fore,  of  applying  the  Merit  System  as  far  as  the  law 
had  carried  it,  and  his  actions  gave  Civil  Service 
Reformers  much  though  not  complete  satisfaction. 
The  movement  was  just  at  the  turning-point  when 
Roosevelt  was  appointed  Commissioner  in  1889.  Un 
der  listless  or  timid  direction  it  would  have  flagged 
and  probably  lost  much  ground ;  but  Roosevelt  could 
never  do  anything  listlessly  and  whatever  he  pushed 
never  lost  ground. 

The  Civil  Service  Commission  appointed  by 
President  Harrison  consisted  of  three  members,  of 
whom  the  President  was  Charles  Lyman,  with 


90  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  and  Hugh  Thompson,  an  ex-Confederate 
soldier,  for  his  colleagues.  I  do  not  disparage  Messrs. 
Lyman  and  Thompson  when  I  say  that  they  were 
worthy  persons  who  did  not  claim  to  have  an  urgent 
call  to  reform  the  Civil  Service,  or  anything  else. 
They  were  not  of  the  stuff  which  leads  revolts  or 
reforms,  but  rather  of  that  convenient  class,  which 
still  can  be  met  in  Washington,  of  men  available  for 
any  respectable  office  which  does  not  involve  any 
special  knowledge  or  zeal.  In  a  very  short  time  the 
Commission,  Congress,  and  the  public  learned  that 
it  was  Roosevelt,  the  youngest  member,  just  turned 
thirty  years  of  age,  who  steered  the  Commission. 
Hostile  critics  would  say,  of  course,  that  he  usurped 
the  leadership;  but  I  think  that  this  is  inaccurate. 
It  was  not  his  conceit  or  ambition,  it  was  destiny 
working  through  him,  which  made  where  he  sat  the 
head  of  the  table.  Being  tremendously  interested  in 
this  cause  and  incomparably  abler  than  Lyman  or 
Thompson,  he  naturally  did  most  of  the  work,  and 
his  decisions  shaped  their  common  policy.  The  ap 
peal  to  his  sense  of  humor  and  his  sense  of  justice 
stimulated  him,  and  being  a  man  who  already  saw 
what  large  consequences  sometimes  flow  from  small 
causes  he  must  have  been  buoyed  up  by  the  thought 
that  any  of  the  cases  which  came  before  him  might 
set  a  very  important  precedent. 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS        91 

Roosevelt  acted  on  the  principle  that  the  office 
holder  who  swears  to  carry  out  a  law  must  do  this 
without  hesitation  or  demur.  If  the  law  is  good, 
enforcing  it  will  make  its  goodness  apparent  to 
everybody;  if  it  is  bad,  it  will  become  the  more 
quickly  odious  and  need  to  be  repealed.  Roosevelt 
enforced  the  Civil  Service  Law  with  the  utmost 
rigor.  It  called  for  the  examination  of  candidates  for 
office,  and  the  examiners  paid  some  heed  to  their 
moral  fitness.  Its  opponents  tried  to  stir  up  public 
opinion  against  it  by  circulating  what  purported  to 
be  some  of  its  examination  papers.  Why,  they  asked, 
should  a  man  who  wished  to  be  a  letter-carrier  in 
Keokuk,  be  required  to  give  a  list  of  the  Presidents 
of  the  United  States?  Or  what  was  the  shortest  route 
for  a  letter  going  from  Bombay  to  Yokohama?  By 
these  and  similar  spurious  questions  the  spoilsmen 
hoped  to  get  rid  of  the  reformers.  But  "shrewd 
slander,"  as  Roosevelt  called  it,  could  not  move 
him. 

Two  specimen  cases  will  suffice  to  show  how  he 
reduced  shrewd  slanderers  to  confusion. 

The  first  was  Charles  Henry  Grosvenor,  an  influ 
ential  Republican  Congressman  from  Ohio,  familiarly 
known  as  the  "  Gentle  Shepherd  of  Ohio/'  because 
of  his  efforts  to  raise  the  tariff  on  wool  for  the  benefit 
of  the  owners  of  the  few  thousand  sheep  in  that  State. 


92  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

A  Congressional  Committee  was  investigating  the 
Civil  Service  Commission  and  Roosevelt  asked  that 
Grosvenor,  who  had  attacked  it,  might  be  sum 
moned.  Grosvenor,  however,  did  not  appear,  but 
when  he  learned  that  Roosevelt  was  going  to  his 
Dakota  ranch  for  a  vacation,  he  sent  word  that  he 
would  come.  Nevertheless,  this  gallant  act  failed  to 
save  him,  for  Roosevelt  canceled  his  ticket  West, 
and  confronted  Grosvenor  at  the  investigation.  The 
Gentle  Shepherd  protested  that  he  had  never  said 
that  he  wished  to  repeal  the  Civil  Service  Law; 
whereupon  Roosevelt  read  this  extract  from  one  of 
his  speeches:  "  I  will  vote  not  only  to  strike  out  this 
provision,  but  I  will  vote  to  repeal  the  whole  law." 
When  Roosevelt  pointed  out  the  inconsistency  of  the 
two  statements,  Grosvenor  declared  that  they 
meant  the  same  thing. 

Being  caught  thus  by  one  foot  in  Roosevelt's  man 
trap,  he  quickly  proceeded  to  be  caught  by  the 
other.  He  declared  that  Rufus  P.  Putnam,  one  of 
the  candidates  in  dispute,  had  never  lived  in  Gros- 
venor's  Congressional  district,  or  even  in  Ohio.  Then 
Mr.  Roosevelt  quoted  from  a  letter  written  by  Gros 
venor:  "Mr.  Rufus  P.  Putnam  is  a  legal  resident  of 
my  district,  and  has  relatives  living  there  now." 
With  both  feet  caught  in  the  man-trap,  the  Gentle 
Shepherd  was  suffering  much  pain,  but  Truth  is  so 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS  93 
great  a  stranger  to  spoilsmen  that  he  found  diffi 
culty  in  getting  within  speaking  distance  of  her. 
For  he  protested,  first,  that  he  never  wrote  the  letter, 
next,  that  he  had  forgotten  that  he  wrote  it,  and 
finally,  that  he  was  misinformed  when  he  wrote  it. 
So  far  as  appears,  he  never  risked  a  tilt  with  the 
smiling  young  Commissioner  again,  but  returned  to 
his  muttons  and  their  fleeces. 

A  still  more  distinguished  personage  fell  before 
the  enthusiastic  Commissioner.  This  was  Arthur 
Pue  Gorman,  a  Senator  from  Maryland,  a  Democrat, 
one  of  the  most  pertinacious  agents  of  the  Big  Inter 
ests  in  the  United  States  Congress.  Evidently,  also, 
he  served  them  well,  as  they  kept  him  in  the  Senate 
for  nearly  twenty-five  years,  until  his  death.  They 
employed  Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans,  just 
as  they  subscribed  to  both  Democratic  and  Repub 
lican  campaign  funds.  For,  "in  politics  there  is  no 
politics."  Gorman,  who  knew  that  the  Spoils  System 
was  almost  indispensable  to  the  running  of  a  polit 
ical  machine,  waited  for  a  chance  to  attack  the  Civil 
Service  Commission.  Thinking  that  the  propitious 
moment  had  come,  he  inveighed  against  it  in  the 
Senate.  He  "described  with  moving  pathos,"  as 
Roosevelt  tells  the  story,  "how  a  friend  of  his,  'a 
bright  young  man  from  Baltimore,'  a  Sunday-School 
scholar,  well  recommended  by  his  pastor,  wished  to 


94  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

be  a  letter-carrier,"  but  the  cruel  examiners  floored 
him  by  asking  the  shortest  route  from  Baltimore  to 
China,  to  which  he  replied  that,  as  he  never  wished 
to  go  to  China,  he  had  n't  looked  up  the  route.  Then, 
Senator  Gorman  asserted,  the  examiners  quizzed 
him  about  all  the  steamship  lines  from  the  United 
States  to  Europe,  branched  off  into  geology  and 
chemistry,  and  "turned  him  down." 

Gorman  was  unaware  that  the  Commissioners 
kept  records  of  all  their  examinations,  and  when 
Roosevelt  wrote  him  a  polite  note  inquiring  the 
name  of  the  " bright  young  man  from  Baltimore," 
Gorman  did  not  reply.  Roosevelt  also  asked  him,  in 
case  he  shrank  from  giving  the  name  of  his  inform 
ant,  to  give  the  date  when  the  alleged  examination 
took  place.  He  even  offered  to  open  the  files  to  any 
representative  the  Senator  chose  to  send.  Gorman, 
however,  "not  hitherto  known  as  a  sensitive  soul," 
as  Roosevelt  remarks,  "expressed  himself  as  so 
shocked  at  the  thought  that  the  veracity  of  the 
bright  young  man  should  be  doubted,  that  he  could 
not  bring  himself  to  answer  my  letter."  Accordingly, 
Roosevelt  made  a  public  statement  that  the  Com 
missioners  had  never  asked  the  questions  which 
Gorman  alleged.  Gorman  waited  until  the  next  ses 
sion  of  Congress  and  then,  in  a  speech  before  the 
Senate,  complained  that  he  had  received  a  very 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS        95 

" impudent"  letter  from  Commissioner  Roosevelt 
" cruelly"  calling  him  to  account,  when  he  was 
simply  endeavoring  to  right  a  great  wrong  which  the 
Commission  had  committed.  But  neither  then  nor 
afterwards  did  he  furnish  "any  clue  to  the  identity 
of  that  child  of  his  fondest  fancy,  the  bright  young 
man  without  a  name." 

Roosevelt  must  have  chuckled  with  a  righteous 
exultation  at  such  evidence  as  this  that  the  Lord  had 
delivered  the  Philistines  into  his  hands;  and  his 
abomination  of  the  Spoils  System  must  have  deep 
ened  when  he  saw  its  Grosvenors  and  its  Gormans 
brazen  out  the  lies  he  caught  them  telling. 

When  the  spoilsmen  failed  to  get  rid  of  the  Com 
mission  by  ridicule  and  by  open  attack,  they  re 
sorted  to  the  trick  of  not  appropriating  money  for  it 
in  this  or  that  district.  But  this  did  not  succeed,  for 
the  Commission,  owing  to  lack  of  funds,  held  no 
examinations  in  those  districts,  and  therefore  no 
candidates  from  them  could  get  offices.  This  made 
the  politicians  unpopular  with  the  hungry  office- 
seekers  whom  they  deprived  of  their  food  at  the 
public  trough. 

The  Commission  had  to  struggle,  however,  not 
only  to  keep  unfit  candidates  out  of  office,  but  to 
keep  in  office  those  who  discharged  their  duty  hon 
estly  and  zealously.  After  every  election  there  came 


96  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

a  rush  of  Congressmen  and  others,  to  turn  out  the 
tried  and  trusty  employees  and  to  put  in  their  own 
applicants.  Such  an  overturn  was  of  course  detri 
mental  to  the  service;  first,  because  it  substituted 
greenhorns  for  trained  employees,  and  next,  because 
it  introduced  the  haphazard  of  politicians'  whims 
for  a  just  scheme  of  promotion  and  retention  in 
office.  Roosevelt  lamented  bitterly  over  the  injustice 
and  he  denounced  the  waste.  Many  cases  of  grievous 
hardship  came  to  his  notice.  Widows,  whose  only 
means  of  support  for  themselves  and  their  little  chil 
dren  was  their  salary,  were  thrown  upon  the  street 
in  order  that  rapacious  politicians  might  secure 
places  for  their  henchmen.  Roosevelt  might  plead, 
but  the  politician  remained  obdurate.  What  was  the 
tragic  lot  of  a  widow  and  starving  children  compared 
with  keeping  promises  with  greedy  " heelers"? 
Roosevelt  saw  that  there  was  no  redress  except 
through  the  extension  of  the  classified  service. 
This  he  urged  at  all  times,  and  ten  years  later,  when 
he  was  himself  President,  he  added  more  than  fifty 
thousand  offices  to  the  list  of  those  which  the  spoils 
men  could  not  clutch. 

He  served  six  years  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
being  reappointed  in  1892  by  President  Cleveland. 
The  overturn  in  parties  which  made  Cleveland 
President  for  the  second  time,  enabled  Roosevelt  to 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS         97 

watch  more  closely  the  working  of  the  Reform  Sys 
tem  and  he  did  what  he  could  to  safeguard  those 
Government  employees  who  were  Republicans  from 
being  ousted  for  the  benefit  of  Democrats.  In  general, 
he  believed  in  laying  down  certain  principles  on  the 
tenure  of  office  and  in  standing  resolutely  by  them. 
Thus,  in  1891,  under  Harrison,  on  being  urged  to 
retain  General  Corse,  the  excellent  Democratic  Post 
master  of  Boston,  he  replied  to  his  friend  Curtis 
Guild  that  Corse  ought  to  be  continued  as  a  matter 
of  principle  and  not  because  Cleveland,  several  years 
before,  had  retained  Pearson,  the  Republican  Post 
master  of  New  York,  as  an  exception. 

At  the  end  of  six  years,  Roosevelt  felt  that  he  had 
worked  on  the  Commission  long  enough  to  let  the 
American  people  understand  how  necessary  it  was 
to  maintain  and  extend  the  Merit  System  in  the 
Civil  Service.  A  sudden  access  of  virtue  had  just 
cast  out  the  Tammany  Ring  in  New  York  City  and 
set  up  Mr.  Strong,  a  Reformer,  as  Mayor.  He  wished 
to  secure  Roosevelt's  help  and  Roosevelt  was  eager 
to  give  it.  The  Mayor  offered  him  the  headship  of 
the  Street  Cleaning  Department,  but  this  he  de 
clined,  not  because  he  thought  the  place  beneath 
him,  but  because  he  lacked  the  necessary  scientific 
qualifications,  and  Mayor  Strong  was  lucky  in  find 
ing  for  it  the  best  man  in  the  country,  Colonel 


98  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

George  E.  Waring.  Accordingly,  the  Mayor  ap 
pointed  Roosevelt  President  of  the  Board  of  Police 
Commissioners,  and  he  accepted. 

The  Police  System  in  New  York  City  in  1895, 
when  Roosevelt  took  control,  was  a  monstrosity 
which,  in  almost  every  respect,  did  exactly  the  oppo 
site  from  what  the  Police  System  is  organized  to  do. 
Moral  values  had  been  so  perverted  that  it  took  a 
strong  man  to  hold  fast  to  the  rudimentary  distinc 
tions  between  Good  and  Evil.  The  Police  existed,  in 
theory,  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  respect 
able  citizens;  to  catch  law-breakers  and  hand  them 
over  to  the  courts  for  punishment;  to  hunt  down 
gamblers,  swindlers,  and  all  the  other  various  crim 
inals  and  purveyors  of  vice.  In  reality,  the  Police 
under  Tammany  abetted  crime  and  protected  the 
vicious.  This  they  did,  not  because  they  had  any 
special  hostility  to  Virtue  —  they  probably  knew  too 
little  about  it  to  form  a  dispassionate  opinion  any 
way  —  but  because  Vice  paid  better.  They  held  the 
cynical  view  that  human  nature  will  always  breed  a 
great  many  persons  having  a  propensity  to  licentious 
or  violent  habits;  that  laws  were  made  to  check  and 
punish  these  persons,  and  that  they  might  go  their 
pernicious  ways  unmolested  if  the  Police  took  no 
notice  of  them.  So  the  Police  established  a  system  of 
immunity  which  anybody  could  enjoy  by  paying  the 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS        99 

price.  Notorious  gambling-hells  "ran  wide  open1' 
after  handing  the  required  sum  to  the  high  police 
official  who  extorted  it.  Hundreds  of  houses  of  ill- 
fame  carried  on  their  hideous  traffic  undisturbed,  so 
long  as  the  Police  Captain  of  the  district  received 
his  weekly  bribe.  Gangs  of  roughs,  toughs,  and  gun 
men  pursued  their  piratical  business  without  think 
ing  of  the  law,  for  they  shared  their  spoils  with  the 
supposed  officers  of  the  law.  And  there  were  more 
degenerate  miscreants  still,  who  connived  with  the 
Police  and  went  unscathed.  As  if  the  vast  sums  col 
lected  from  these  willing  bribers  were  not  enough, 
the  Police  added  a  system  of  blackmail  to  be  levied 
on  those  who  were  not  deliberately  vicious,  but  who 
sought  convenience.  If  you  walked  downtown  you 
found  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  certain  stores  almost 
barricaded  by  packing-boxes,  whereas  next  door  the 
way  might  be  clear.  This  simply  meant  that  the  firm 
which  wished  to  use  the  sidewalk  for  its  private 
advantage  paid  the  policeman  on  that  beat,  and  he 
looked  the  other  way.  As  there  was  an  ordinance 
against  almost  every  conceivable  thing,  so  the  Police 
had  a  price  for  making  every  ordinance  a  dead  letter. 
Was  this  a  cosmic  joke,  a  nightmare  of  cynicism, 
a  delusion?  No,  New  York  was  classed  in  the  refer 
ence  books  as  a  Christian  city,  and  this  was  its 
Christianity. 


ioo  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  knew  the  seamless  bond  which  con 
nected  the  crime  and  vice  of  the  city  with  corrupt 
politics.  The  party  Bosses,  Republicans  and  Demo 
crats  alike,  were  the  final  profiters  from  police  black 
mail  and  bribery.  As  he  held  his  mandate  from  a 
Reform  Administration,  he  might  expect  to  be  aided 
by  it  on  the  political  side;  at  least,  he  did  not  fear 
that  the  heads  of  the  other  departments  would 
secretly  work  to  block  his  purification  of  the  Police. 

A  swift  examination  showed  him  that  the  New 
York  Police  Department  actually  protected  the  crim 
inals  and  promoted  every  kind  of  iniquity  which  it 
existed  to  put  down.  It  was  as  if  in  a  hospital  which 
should  cure  the  sick,  the  doctors,  instead  of  curing 
disease,  should  make  the  sick  worse  and  should  make 
the  well  sick.  How  was  Roosevelt,  equally  valiant 
and  honest,  to  conquer  this  Hydra?  He  took  the 
straight  way  dictated  by  common  sense.  First  of  all, 
he  gained  the  confidence  and  respect  of  his  men.  He 
said  afterwards,  that  even  at  its  worst,  when  he  went 
into  office,  the  majority  of  the  Police  wanted  to  do 
right ;  that  their  instincts  were  loyal ;  and  this  meant 
much,  because  they  were  tempted  on  all  sides  by 
vicious  wrongdoers;  they  had  constantly  before  them 
the  example  of  superiors  who  took  bribes  and  they 
received  neither  recognition  nor  praise  for  their  own 
worthy  deeds. 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS       101 

The  Force  came  very  soon  to  understand  that 
under  Roosevelt  every  man  would  get  a  "  square 
deal."  "Pulls"  had  no  efficacy.  The  Chief  Commis 
sioner  personally  kept  track  of  as  many  men  as  he 
could.  When  he  saw  in  the  papers  one  morning  that 
Patrolman  X  had  saved  a  woman  from  drowning, 
he  looked  him  up,  found  that  the  man  had  been 
twenty-two  years  in  the  service,  had  saved  twenty- 
five  lives,  and  had  never  been  noticed,  much  less 
thanked,  by  the  Commission.  More  than  this,  he 
had  to  buy  his  own  uniform,  and  as  this  was  often 
rendered  unfit  for  further  use  when  he  rescued  per 
sons  from  drowning,  or  from  a  burning  house,  his 
heroism  cost  him  much  in  dollars  and  cents.  By 
Roosevelt's  orders  the  Department  henceforth  paid 
for  new  uniforms  in  such  cases,  and  it  awarded  med 
als.  By  recognizing  the  good,  and  by  weeding  out  as 
fast  as  possible  the  bad  members  of  the  Force, 
Roosevelt  thus  organized  the  best  body  of  Police 
which  New  York  City  had  ever  seen.  There  were,  of 
course,  some  black  sheep  among  them  whom  he 
could  not  reach,  but  he  changed  the  fashion,  so  that 
it  was  no  longer  a  point  of  excellence  to  be  a  black 
sheep. 

Roosevelt  rigorously  enforced  , the, laws %  without 
regard  to  his  personal  opinion.  It  happened  that  at 
that  time  the  good  people  of  jNew  York,  ins isj;eid,  that 


102  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

liquor  saloons  should  do  no  business  on  Sundays. 
This  prohibition  had  long  been  on  the  statute  book, 
but  it  had  been  generally  evaded  because  the  saloon 
keepers  had  paid  the  Bosses,  who  controlled  the 
Police  Department,  to  let  them  keep  open  —  usually 
by  a  side  door  —  on  Sundays.  Indeed,  the  statute 
was  evidently  passed  by  the  Bosses  in  order  to  widen 
their  opportunity  for  blackmail;  but  in  this  they 
overreached  themselves.  For  the  liquor-sellers  at 
last  revolted,  and  they  held  conferences  with  the 
Bosses  —  David  B.  Hill  was  then  the  Democratic 
State  Boss  and  Richard  Croker  the  Tammany  Boss 
—  and  they  published  in  the  Wine  and  Spirit  Gazette, 
their  organ,  this  statement:  "An  agreement  was 
made  between  the  leaders  of  Tammany  Hall  and  the 
liquor-dealers,  according  to  which  the  monthly 
blackmail  paid  to  the  force  should  be  discontinued 
in  return  for  political  support."  Croker  and  his  pals, 
taking  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  public  knew 
their  methods,  neither  denied  this  incriminating 
statement  nor  thought  it  worth  noticing. 

For  a  while  all  the  saloons  enjoyed  equal  immunity 
in  selling  drinks  on  Sunday.  Then  came  Roosevelt 
and  ordered  his  men  to  close  every  saloon.  Many  of 
the  bar-keepers  laughed  incredulously  at  the  patrol 
man  who 'gave  the  Order;  many  others  flew  into  a 
rage.'  The  i>ubUc  denounced  this  attempt  to  strangle 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS       103 

its  liberties  and  reviled  the  Police  Chief  as  the  would- 
be  enforcer  of  obsolescent  blue  laws.  But  they  could 
not  frighten  Roosevelt:  the  saloons  were  closed. 
Nevertheless,  even  he  could  not  prevail  against  the 
overwhelming  desire  for  drink.  Crowds  of  virtuous 
citizens  preferred  an  honest  police  force,  but  they 
preferred  their  beer  or  their  whiskey  still  more,  and 
joined  with  the  criminal  classes,  the  disreputables, 
and  all  the  others  who  regarded  any  law  as  out 
rageous  which  interfered  with  their  personal  habits. 
Accordingly,  since  they  could  not  budge  Roosevelt, 
they  changed  the  law.  A  compliant  local  judge  dis 
covered  that  it  was  lawful  to  take  what  drink  you 
chose  with  a  meal,  and  the  result  was  that,  as  Roose 
velt  describes  it,  a  man  by  eating  one  pretzel  might 
drink  seventeen  beers. 

Roosevelt  himself  visited  all  parts  of  the  city  and 
chiefly  those  where  Vice  grew  flagrant  at  night.  The 
journalists,  who  knew  of  his  tours  of  inspection  and 
were  always  on  the  alert  for  the  picturesque,  likened 
him  to  the  great  Caliph  who  in  similar  fashion  inves 
tigated  Baghdad,  and  they  nicknamed  him  Haroun 
al  Roosevelt.  He  had  for  his  companion  Jacob  Riis, 
a  remarkable  Dane  who  migrated  to  this  country  in 
youth,  got  the  position  of  reporter  on  one  of  the 
New  York  dailies,  frequented  the  courts,  studied 
the  condition  of  the  abject  poor  in  the  tenement- 


104  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

houses,  and  the  haunts  where  Vice  breeds  like  scum 
on  stagnant  pools,  and  wrote  a  book,  "How  the 
Other  Half  Lives,"  which  startled  the  consciences  of 
the  well-to-do  and  the  virtuous.  Riis  showed  Roose 
velt  everything.  Police  headquarters  were  in  Mul 
berry  Street,  and  yet  within  a  stone's  throw  iniquity 
flourished.  He  guided  him  through  the  Tenderloin 
District,  and  the  wharves,  and  so  they  made  the 
rounds  of  the  vast  city.  More  than  once  Roosevelt 
surprised  a  shirking  patrolman  on  his  beat,  but  his 
purpose  they  all  knew  was  to  see  justice  done,  and  to 
keep  the  officers  of  the  Force  up  to  the  highest  stand 
ard  of  duty. 

One  other  anecdote  concerning  his  experience  as 
Police  Commissioner  I  repeat,  because  it  shows  by 
what  happy  touches  of  humor  he  sometimes  dis 
persed  menacing  clouds.  A  German  Jew-baiter, 
Rector  Ahlwardt,  came  over  from  Berlin  to  preach 
a  crusade  against  the  Jews.  Great  trepidation  spread 
through  the  Jewish  colony  and  they  asked  Roosevelt 
to  forbid  Ahlwardt  from  holding  public  meetings 
against  them.  This,  he  saw,  would  make  a  martyr  of 
the  German  persecutor  and  probably  harm  the  Jews 
more  than  it  would  help  them.  So  Roosevelt  be 
thought  him  of  a  device  which  worked  perfectly.  He 
summoned  forty  of  the  best  Jewish  policemen  on  the 
Force  and  ordered  them  to  preserve  order  in  the  hall 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS       105 

and  prevent  Ahlwardt  from  being  interrupted  or 
abused.  The  meeting  passed  off  without  disturbance; 
Ahlwardt  stormed  in  vain  against  the  Jews;  the  audi 
ence  and  the  public  saw  the  humor  of  the  affair  and 
Jew-baiting  gained  no  foothold  in  New  York  City. 

Although  Roosevelt  thoroughly  enjoyed  his  work 
as  Police  Commissioner,  he  felt  rightly  that  it  did 
not  afford  him  the  freest  scope  to  exercise  his  pow 
ers.  Much  as  he  valued  executive  work,  the  putting 
into  practice  and  carrying  out  of  laws,  he  felt  more 
and  more  strongly  the  desire  to  make  them,  and  his 
instinct  told  him  that  he  was  fitted  for  this  higher 
task.  When,  therefore,  the  newly  elected  Republican 
President,  William  McKinley,  offered  him  the  ap 
parently  modest  position  of  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  he  accepted  it. 

There  was  general  grieving  in  New  York  City  — 
except  among  the  criminals  and  Tammany  —  at  the 
news  of  his  resignation.  All  sorts  of  persons  ex 
pressed  regrets  that  were  really  sincere,  and  their 
gratitude  for  the  good  which  he  had  done  for  them 
all.  Some  of  them  protested  that  he  ought  not  to 
abandon  the  duty  which  he  had  discharged  so  val 
iantly.  One  of  these  was  Edwin  L.  Godkin,  editor  of 
The  Nation  and  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  a  critic 
who  seldom  spoke  politely  of  anything  except  ideals 
which  had  not  been  attained,  or  commended  per- 


io6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

sons  who  were  not  dead  and  so  beyond  reach  of 
praise.  Since  Roosevelt  himself  has  quoted  this  pas 
sage  from  Godkin's  letter  to  him,  I  think  it  ought  to 
be  reprinted  here:  "  I  have  a  concern,  as  the  Quakers 
say,  to  put  on  record  my  earnest  belief  that  in  New 
York  you  are  doing  the  greatest  work  of  which  any 
American  today  is  capable,  and  exhibiting  to  the 
young  men  of  the  country  the  spectacle  of  a  very 
important  office  administered  by  a  man  of  high 
character  in  the  most  efficient  way  amid  a  thousand 
difficulties.  As  a  lesson  in  politics  I  cannot  think  of 
anything  more  instructive." 

Godkin  was  a  great  power  for  good,  in  spite  of  the 
obvious  unpopularity  which  an  incessant  critic  can 
not  fail  to  draw  down  upon  himself.  The  most  pessi 
mistic  of  us  secretly  crave  a  little  respite  when  for 
half  an  hour  we  may  forget  the  circumambient  and 
all-pervading  gloom :  music,  or  an  entertaining  book, 
or  a  dear  friend  lifts  the  burden  from  us.  And  then 
comes  our  uncompromising  pessimist  and  chides  us 
for  our  softness  and  for  letting  ourselves  be  led 
astray  from  our  pessimism.  His  Jeremiads  are  prob 
ably  justified,  and  as  the  historian  looks  back  he 
finds  that  they  give  the  truest  statement  of  the  past ; 
for  the  present  must  be  very  bad,  indeed,  if  it  does 
not  discover  conditions  still  worse  in  the  past  from 
which  it  has  emerged.  But  Godkin  living  could  not 


APPLYING  MORALS  TO  POLITICS       107 

escape  from  two  sorts  of  unsympathetic  depre 
dators:  first,  the  wicked  who  smarted  under  his 
just  scourge,  and  next,  the  upright,  who  tired  of 
unremittent  censure,  although  they  admitted  that  it 
was  just. 

Roosevelt  came,  quite  naturally,  to  set  the  doer 
above  the  critic,  who,  he  thought,  quickly  degener 
ated  into  a  fault-finder  and  from  that  into  a  common 
scold.  When  a  man  plunges  into  a  river  to  save  some 
body  from  drowning,  if  you  do  not  plunge  in  your 
self,  at  least  do  not  jeer  at  him  for  his  method  of 
swimming.  So  Roosevelt,  who  shrank  from  no  bod 
ily  or  moral  risk  himself,  held  in  scorn  the  "  timid 
good,"  the  "  acidly  cantankerous,"  the  peace-at-any- 
price  people,  and  the  entire  tribe  of  those  who,  in 
stead  of  attacking  iniquities  and  abuses,  attacked 
those  who  are  desperately  engaged  in  fighting  these. 
For  this  reason  he  probably  failed  to  absorb  from 
Godkin's  criticism  some  of  the  benefit  which  it 
might  have  brought  him.  The  pills  were  bitter,  but 
salutary.  While  he  was  Police  Commissioner  one  of 
Joseph  Choate's  epigrams  passed  current  and  is  still 
worth  recalling.  When  some  one  remarked  that  New 
York  was  a  very  wicked  city,  Choate  replied,  "How 
can  you  expect  it  to  be  otherwise,  when  Dana  makes 
Vice  so  attractive  in  the  Sun  every  morning,  and 
Godkin  makes  Virtue  so  odious  in  the  Post  every 


io8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

afternoon?"  Charles  A.  Dana,  the  editor  of  the  Sun, 
the  stanch  supporter  of  Tammany  Hall,  and  the 
apologist  of  almost  every  evil  movement  for  nearly 
thirty  years,  was  a  writer  of  diabolical  cleverness 
whose  newspaper  competed  with  Godkin's  among 
the  intellectual  readers  in  search  of  amusement.  At 
one  time,  when  Godkin  had  been  particularly  caus 
tic,  and  the  Mugwumps  at  Harvard  were  unusually 
critical,  Roosevelt  attended  a  committee  meeting  at 
the  University.  After  talking  with  President  Eliot, 
he  went  and  sat  by  a  professor,  and  remarked,  play 
fully,  "  Eliot  is  really  a  good  fellow  at  heart.  Do  you 
suppose  that,  if  he  bit  Godkin,  it  would  take?" 

So  Roosevelt  went  back  to  Washington  to  be 
henceforth,  as  it  proved,  a  national  figure  whose 
career  was  to  be  forever  embedded  in  the  structural 
growth  of  the  United  States. 


w 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ROUGH  RIDER 

HEN  Roosevelt  returned  to  Washington  in 
March,  1897,  to  take  up  his  duties  as  a  subor 
dinate  officer  in  the  National  Government,  he  was 
thirty-eight  years  old;  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life, 
with  the  strength  of  an  ox,  but  quick  in  movement, 
and  tough  in  endurance.  A  rapid  thinker,  his  intel 
lect  seemed  as  impervious  to  fatigue  as  was  his  en 
ergy.  Along  with  this  physical  and  intellectual  make 
up  went  courage  of  both  kinds,  passion  for  justice, 
and  a  buoying  sense  of  obligation  towards  his  fel 
lows  and  the  State.  His  career  thus  far  had  prepared 
him  for  the  highest  service.  Born  and  brought  up 
amid  what  our  society  classifiers,  with  their  sure 
democratic  instincts,  loved  to  call  the  "  aristo 
cratic"  circle  in  New  York,  his  three  years  in  the 
Assembly  at  Albany  introduced  him  to  the  motley 
group  of  Representatives  of  high  and  low,  bank 
presidents  and  farmers,  blacklegs  and  philanthro 
pists,  who  gathered  there  to  make  the  laws  for  New 
York  State.  There  he  displayed  the  preference,  char 
acteristic  of  him  through  life,  of  choosing  his  in 
timates  irrespective  of  their  occupation  or  social 


i  io  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

label.  Then  he  went  out  on  the  Plains  and  learned 
to  live  with  wild  men,  for  whom  the  artificial  distinc 
tions  of  civilization  had  no  meaning.  He  adapted 
himself  to  a  primeval  standard  in  which  courage  and 
a  rough  sense  of  honor  were  the  chief  virtues.  But 
this  experience  did  still  more  for  him  than  prove  his 
personal  power  of  getting  along  with  such  lower 
types  of  men,  for  it  revealed  to  him  the  human  ex 
tremes  of  the  American  Nation.  How  vast  it  was, 
how  varied,  how  intricate,  and,  potentially,  how 
sublime!  Lincoln,  coming  out  of  the  Kentucky  back 
woods,  first  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  then  to  Chicago 
in  its  youth,  and  finally  to  Washington,  similarly 
passed  in  review  the  American  contrasts  of  his  time. 
More  specific  was  Roosevelt's  training  as  a  Civil 
Service  Commissioner.  The  public  had  been  ap 
plauding  him  as  a  youthful  prodigy,  as  a  fellow  of 
high  spirit,  of  undisputed  valor,  of  brilliant  flashes, 
of  versatility,  but  the  worldly-wise,  who  have  been 
too  often  fooled,  were  haunted  by  the  suspicion  that 
perhaps  this  astonishing  young  man  would  turn  out 
to  be  only  a  meteor  after  all.  His  six  years  of  routine 
work  on  the  Civil  Service  Commission  put  this  anxi 
ety  to  rest.  That  work  could  not  be  carried  on  suc 
cessfully  by  a  man  of  moods  and  spurts,  but  only 
by  a  man  of  solid  moral  basis,  who  could  not  be 
disheartened  by  opposition  or  deflected  by  threats 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  in 

or  by  temptations,  and,  as  I  have  before  suggested, 
the  people  began  to  accustom  itself  to  the  fact  that 
whatever  position  Roosevelt  filled  was  conspicuous 
precisely  because  he  filled  it.  A  good  while  was  still 
to  elapse  before  we  understood  that  notoriety  was 
inseparable  from  him,  and  did  not  need  to  be  ex 
plained  by  the  theory  that  he  was  constantly  setting 
traps  for  self-advertisement. 

As  Police  Commissioner  of  New  York  City  he  con 
tinued  his  familiar  methods,  and  deepened  the  im 
pression  he  had  created.  He  carried  boldness  to  the 
point  of  audacity  and  glorified  the  "square  deal." 
Whatever  he  undertook,  he  drove  through  with  the 
remorselessness  of  a  zealot.  He  made  no  pretense  of 
treating  humbugs  and  shams  as  if  they  were  honest 
and  real;  and  when  he  found  that  the  laws  which 
were  made  to  punish  criminals,  were  used  to  protect 
them,  no  scruple  prevented  him  from  achieving  the 
spirit  of  the  law,  although  he  might  disregard  its 
perverted  letter. 

Ponder  this  striking  example.  The  City  of  New 
York  forbade  the  sale  of  liquor  to  minors.  But  this 
ordinance  was  so  completely  unobserved  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  common  drunks  brought  be 
fore  the  Police  Court  were  lads  and  even  young  girls, 
to  whom  the  bar-tenders  sold  with  impunity.  The 
children,  often  the  little  children  of  depraved  par- 


ii2  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ents,  "rushed  the  growler";  factory  hands  sent  the 
boys  out  regularly  to  fetch  their  bottle  or  bucket  of 
drink  from  the  saloons.  Everybody  knew  of  these 
breaches  of  the  law,  but  the  framers  of  the  law  had 
taken  care  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  procure  legal 
evidence  of  those  breaches.  The  public  conscience 
was  pricked  a  little  when  the  newspapers  told  it  that 
one  of  the  youths  sent  for  liquor  had  drunk  so  much 
of  it  that  he  fell  into  a  stupor,  took  refuge  in  an  old 
building,  and  that  there  the  rats  had  eaten  him  alive. 
Whether  it  was  before  or  after  this  horror  that  Chief 
Commissioner  Roosevelt  decided  to  take  the  law 
into  his  own  hands,  I  do  not  know,  but  what  he  did 
was  swift.  The  Police  engaged  one  of  the  minors,  who 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  going  to  the  saloons,  to  go 
for  another  supply,  and  then  to  testify.  This  sum 
mary  proceeding  scared  the  rum-dealers  and,  no 
doubt,  they  guarded  against  being  caught  again. 
But  the  victims  of  moral  dry  rot  held  up  their  hands 
in  rebuke  and  one  of  the  city  Judges  wept  meta 
phorical  tears  of  chagrin  that  the  Police  should  en 
gage  in  the  awful  crime  of  enticing  a  youth  to  com 
mit  crime.  The  record  does  not  show  that  this  Judge, 
or  any  other,  had  ever  done  anything  to  check  the 
practice  of  selling  liquor  to  minors,  a  practice  which 
inevitably  led  thousands  of  the  youth  of  New  York 
City  to  become  drunkards. 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  113 

How  do  you  judge  Roosevelt's  act?  Do  you  admit 
that  a  little  wrong  may  ever  be  done  in  order  to  se 
cure  a  great  right?  Roosevelt  held,  in  such  cases,  that 
the  wrong  is  only  technical,  or  a  blind  set  up  by  the 
wicked  to  shield  themselves.  The  danger  of  allowing 
each  person  to  play  with  the  law,  as  with  a  toy,  is 
evident.  That  way  lies  Jesuitry;  but  each  infringe 
ment  must  be  judged  on  its  own  merits,  and  as 
Roosevelt  followed  more  and  more  these  short  cuts 
to  justice  he  needed  to  be  more  closely  scrutinized. 
Was  his  real  object  to  attain  justice  or  his  own 
desires? 

The  Roosevelts  moved  back  to  Washington  in 
March,  1897,  and  Theodore  at  once  went  to  work  in 
the  office  of  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in 
that  amazing  building  which  John  Hay  called  "  Mul- 
lett's  masterpiece, "  where  the  Navy,  War,  and  State 
Departments  found  shelter  under  one  roof.  The  Sec 
retary  of  the  Navy  was  John  D.  Long,  of  Massachu 
setts,  who  had  been  a  Congressman  and  Governor, 
was  a  man  of  cultivation  and  geniality,  and  a  lawyer 
of  high  reputation.  Although  sixty  years  old,  he  was 
believed  never  to  have  made  an  enemy  either  in 
politics  or  at  the  Bar.  Those  who  knew  the  two 
gentlemen  wondered  whether  the  somewhat  leis 
urely  and  conservative  Secretary  could  leash  in  his 
restless  young  First  Assistant,  with  his  Titanic  en- 


114  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ergy  and  his  head  full  of  projects.  No  one  believed 
that  even  Roosevelt  could  startle  Governor  Long 
out  of  his  habitual  urbanity,  but  every  one  could 
foresee  that  they  might  so  clash  in  policy  that  either 
the  head  or  the  assistant  would  have  to  retire. 

Nothing  is  waste  that  touches  the  man  of  genius. 
So  the  two  years  which  Roosevelt  spent  in  writing, 
fifteen  years  before,  the  "History  of  the  Naval  War 
of  1812,"  now  served  him  to  good  purpose;  for  it 
gave  him  much  information  about  the  past  of  the 
United  States  Navy  and  it  quickened  his  interest  in 
the  problems  of  the  Navy  as  it  should  be  at  that 
time.  The  close  of  the  Civil  War  in  1865  left  the 
United  States  with  a  formidable  fleet,  which  during 
the  next  quarter  of  a  century  deteriorated  until  it 
comprised  only  a  collection  of  rotting  and  unservice 
able  ships.  Then  came  a  reaction,  followed  by  the 
construction  of  an  up-to-date  fleet,  and  by  the  recog 
nition  by  Congress  that  the  United  States  must  pur 
sue  a  modern  policy  in  naval  affairs.  Roosevelt  had 
always  felt  the  danger  to  the  United  States  of  main 
taining  a  despicable  or  an  inadequate  Navy,  and 
from  the  moment  he  entered  the  Department  he  set 
about  pushing  the  construction  of  the  unfinished 
vessels  and  of  improving  the  quality  of  the  personnel. 

He  was  impelled  to  do  this,  not  merely  by  his 
instinct  to  bring  whatever  he  undertook  up  to  the 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  115 

highest  standard,  but  also  because  he  had  a  premo 
nition  that  a  crisis  was  at  hand  which  might  call  the 
country  at  an  instant's  notice  to  protect  itself  with 
all  the  power  it  had.  Two  recent  events  aroused  his 
vigilance.  In  December,  ^895^  President  Cleveland 
sent  to  England  a  message  upholding  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  and  warning  the  British  that  they  must 
arbitrate  their  dispute  with  Venezuela  over  a  boun 
dary,  or  fight.  This  sledgehammer  blow  at  England's 
pride  might  well  have  caused  war  had  not  sober 
patriots  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  aghast  at  this 
shocking  possibility,  smoothed  the  way  to  an  under 
standing,  and  had  not  the  British  Government  itself 
acknowledged  the  rightness  of  the  demand  for  arbi 
tration.  So  the  danger  vanished,  but  Roosevelt,  and 
every  other  thoughtful  American,  said  to  himself, 
"  Suppose  England  had  taken  up  the  challenge,  what 
had  we  to  defend  ourselves  with?"  And  we  com 
pared  the  long  roll  of  the  great  British  Fleet  with  the 
paltry  list  of  our  own  ships,  and  realized  that  we 
should  have  been  helpless. 

The  other  fact  which  impressed  Roosevelt  was  the 
insurrection  in  Cuba  which  kept  that  island  in  per 
petual  disorder.  The  cruel  means,  especially  recon- 
centration  and  starvation,  by  which  the  Spaniards 
tried  to  put  down  the  Cubans  stirred  the  sympathy 
of  the  Americans,  and  the  number  of  those  who  be- 


ii6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

lieved  that  the  United  States  ought  to  interfere  in 
behalf  of  humanity  grew  from  month  to  month.  A 
spark  might  kindle  an  explosion.  Obviously,  there 
fore,  the  United  States  must  have  a  Navy  equipped 
and  ready  for  any  emergency  in  the  Caribbean. 

During  his  first  year  in  office,  Assistant  Secretary 
Roosevelt  busied  himself  with  all  the  details  of 
preparation;  he  encouraged  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
officers  of  the  New  Navy,  for  he  shared  their  hopes; 
he  added,  wherever  he  could,  to  its  efficiency,  as 
when  by  securing  from  Congress  an  appropriation 
of  nearly  a  million  dollars  —  which  seemed  then 
enormous  —  for  target  practice.  He  promoted  a  spirit 
of  alertness  —  and  all  the  while  he  watched  the  hori 
zon  towards  Cuba  where  the  signs  grew  angrier  and 
angrier. 

But  the  young  Secretary  had  to  act  with  circum 
spection.  In  the  first  place  the  policy  of  the  Depart 
ment  was  formulated  by  Secretary  Long.  In  the  next 
place  the  Navy  could  not  come  into  action  until 
President  McKinley  and  the  Department  of  State 
gave  the  word.  The  President,  desiring  to  keep  the 
peace  up  to  the  very  end,  would  not  countenance 
any  move  which  might  seem  to  the  Spaniards  either 
a  threat  or  an  insult.  As  the  open  speeding-up  of 
naval  preparations  would  be  construed  as  both, 
nothing  must  be  done  to  excite  alarm.  In  the  autumn 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  117 

of  1897,  however,  some  of  the  Spaniards  at  Havana 
treated  the  American  residents  there  with  so  much 
surliness  that  the  American  Government  took  the 
precaution  to  send  a  battleship  to  the  Havana  Har 
bor  as  a  warning  to  the  menacing  Spaniards,  and  as 
a  protection,  in  case  of  outbreak,  to  American  citi 
zens  and  their  property. 

But  what  was  meant  for  a  precaution  proved  to  be 
the  immediate  cause  of  war.  Early  in  the  evening  of 
February  15,  1898,  the  battleship  Maine,  peaceably 
riding  at  her  moorings  in  the  harbor,  was  blown  up. 
Two  officers  and  264  enlisted  men  were  killed  by  the 
explosion  and  in  the  sinking  of  the  ship.  Nearly  as 
many  more,  with  Captain  Charles  D.  Sigsbee,  the 
commander,  were  rescued.  The  next  morning  the 
newspapers  carried  the  report  to  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  and,  indeed,  to  the  whole  world.  A 
tidal  wave  of  anger  surged  over  this  country.  "That 
means  war!"  was  the  common  utterance.  Some  of 
us,  who  abhorred  the  thought  of  war,  urged  that 
at  least  we  wait  until  the  guilt  could  be  fixed.  The 
reports  of  the  catastrophe  conflicted.  Was  the  ship 
destroyed  by  the  explosion  of  shells  in  its  own  maga 
zine,  or  was  it  blown  up  from  outside?  If  the  latter, 
who  set  off  the  mine?  The  Spaniards?  It  seemed  un 
likely,  if  they  wished  war,  that  they  should  resort  to 
so  clumsy  a  provocation!  Might  not  the  insurgents 


ii8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

themselves  have  done  it,  in  order  to  force  the  United 
States  to  interfere?  While  the  country  waited,  the 
anger  grew.  At  Washington,  nobody  denied  that  war 
was  coming.  All  that  our  diplomacy  attempted  to  do 
was  to  stave  off  the  actual  declaration  long  enough 
to  give  time  for  our  naval  and  military  preparation. 

I  doubt  whether  Roosevelt  ever  worked  with 
greater  relish  than  during  the  weeks  succeeding  the 
blowing-up  of  the  Maine.  At  last  he  had  his  oppor 
tunity,  which  he  improved  night  and  day.  The  Navy 
Department  arranged  in  hot  haste  to  victual  the 
ships;  to  provide  them  with  stores  of  coal  and  ammu 
nition;  to  bring  the  crews  up  to  their  full  quota  by 
enlisting;  to  lay  out  a  plan  of  campaign;  to  see  to 
the  naval  bases  and  the  lines  of  communication ;  and 
to  cooperate  with  the  War  Department  in  making 
ready  the  land  fortifications  along  the  shore.  Of 
course  all  these  labors  did  not  fall  on  Roosevelt's 
shoulders  alone,  but  being  a  tireless  and  willing 
worker  he  had  more  than  one  man's  share  in  the 
preparations. 

But  the  great  fact  that  war  was  coming  —  war, 
the  test  —  delighted  him,  and  his  sense  of  humor 
was  not  allowed  to  sleep.  For  the  peace-at-any-price 
folk,  the  denouncers  of  the  Navy  and  the  Army,  the 
preachers  of  the  doctrine  that  as  all  men  are  good  it 
was  wicked  to  build  defenses  as  if  we  suspected  the 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  119 

goodness  of  our  neighbors,  now  rushed  to  the  Govern 
ment  for  protection.  A  certain  lady  of  importance, 
who  had  a  seaside  villa,  begged  that  a  battleship 
should  be  anchored  just  outside  of  it.  _Seaboard 
cities  frantically  demanded  that  adequate  protection 
should  be  sent  to  them.  The  spokesman  for  one  of 
tKese  cities  happened  to  be  a  politician  of  such  im 
portance  that  President  McKinley  told  the  Assistant 
Secretary  that  his  request  must  be  granted.  Accord 
ingly,  Roosevelt  put  one  of  the  old  monitors  in  com 
mission,  and  had  a  tug  tow  it,  at  the  imminent  risk 
of  its  crew,  to  the  harbor  which  it  was  to  guard,  and 
there  the  water-logged  old  craft  stayed,  to  the  relief 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  and  the  self-satisfaction 
of  the  Congressman  who  was  able  to  give  them  so 
shining  a  proof  of  his  power  with  the  Administration. 
Many  frightened  Bostonians  transferred  their  secu 
rities  to  the  bank  vaults  of  Worcester,  and  they,  too, 
clamored  for  naval  watch  and  ward.  Roosevelt  must 
have  been  made  unusually  merry  by  such  tidings 
from  Boston,  the  city  which  he  regarded  as  particu 
larly  prolific  in  ''the  men  who  formed  the  lunatic 
fringe  in  all  reform  movements." 

It  did  not  astonish  him  that  the  financiers  and  the 
business  men,  who  were  amassing  great  fortunes  in 
peace,  should  frown  on  war,  which  interrupted  their 
fortune-making;  but  he  laughed  when  he  remem- 


120  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

bered  what  they  and  many  other  vague  pacifists  had 
been  solemnly  proclaiming.  There  was  the  Senator, 
for  instance,  who  had  denied  that  we  needed  a  Navy, 
because,  if  the  emergency  came,  he  said,  we  could 
improvise  one,  and  "build  a  battleship  in  every 
creek. "  There  were  also  the  spread-eagle  Americans, 
the  swaggerers  and  braggarts,  who  amused  them 
selves  in  tail-twisting  and  insulting  other  nations  so 
long  as  they  could  do  this  with  impunity;  but  now 
they  were  brought  to  book,  and  their  fears  magnified 
the  possible  danger  they  might  run  from  the  inva 
sion  of  irate  Spaniards.  Their  imagination  pictured 
to  them  the  poor  old  Spanish  warship  Viscaya,  as 
having  as  great  possibility  for  destruction  as  the 
entire  British  Fleet  itself. 

At  all  these  things  Roosevelt  laughed  to  himself, 
because  they  confirmed  the  gospel  of  military  and 
naval  preparedness,  which  he  had  been  preaching 
for  years,  the  gospel  which  these  very  opponents 
reviled  him  for;  but  instead  of  contenting  himself 
by  saying  to  them,  "I  told  you  so,"  he  pushed  on 
preparations  for  war  at  full  speed,  determined  to 
make  the  utmost  of  the  existing  resources.  The  Navy 
had  clearly  two  tasks  before  it.  It  must  blockade 
Cuba,  which  entailed  the  patrol  of  the  Caribbean  Sea 
and  the  protection  of  the  Atlantic  ports,  and  it  must 
prevent  the  Spanish  Fleet,  known  to  be  at  the 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  121 

Philippines,  from  crossing  the  Pacific  Ocean,  harass 
ing  our  commerce,  and  threatening  our  harbors  on 
our  Western  coast.  Through  Roosevelt's  instrumen 
tality,  Commodore  George  Dewey  had  been  ap 
pointed  in  the  preceding  autumn  to  command  our 
Asiatic  Squadron,  and  while,  in  the  absence  of  Gov- 
nor  Long,  Roosevelt  was  Acting-Secretary,  he  sent 
the  following  dispatch : 

Washington,  February  25,  '98. 
DEWEY,  Hong  Kong: 

Order  the  squadron,  except  the  Monocacy,  to  Hong  Kong. 
Keep  full  of  coal.  In  the  event  of  declaration  of  war  Spain, 
your  duty  will  be  to  see  that  the  Spanish  squadron  does  not 
leave  the  Asiatic  coast,  and  then  offensive  operations  in 
Philippine  Islands.  Keep  Olympia  until  further  orders. 

ROOSEVELT 

I  would  not  give  the  impression  that  Roosevelt 
was  the  dictator  of  the  Navy  Department,  or  that 
all,  or  most,  of  its  notable  achievements  came  from 
his  suggestion,  but  the  plain  fact  is,  wherever  you 
look  at  its  most  active  and  fruitful  preparations  for 
war,  you  find  him  vigorously  assisting.  The  order 
he  sent  Commodore  Dewey  led  directly  to  the  chief 
naval  event  of  the  war,  the  destruction  of  the  Span 
ish  Fleet  by  our  Asiatic  Squadron  in  Manila  Bay,  on 
May  1st.  Long  before  this  victory  came  to  pass,  how 
ever,  Roosevelt  had  resigned  from  the  Navy  Depart 
ment  and  was  seeking  an  ampler  outlet  for  his 
energy. 


122  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

/  '          ^^-.""—  ^^^ 

J  "Having  accomplished  his  duty  as  Assistant  Secre- 
J;ary  —  a  post  which  he  felt  was  primarily  for  a 
-civilian  —  he  thought  that  he  had  a  right  to  retire 
/from  it,  and  to  gratify  his  long-cherished  desire  to 
/  take  part  in  the  actual  warfare.  He  did  not  wish,  he 
said,  to  have  to  give  some  excuse  to  his  children  for 
not  having  fought  in  the  war.  As  he  had  insisted  that 
we  ought  to  free  Cuba  from  Spanish  tyranny  and 
cruelty,  he  could  not  consistently  refuse  to  join  ac 
tively  in  the  liberation.  A  man  who  teaches  the  duty 
of  fighting  should  pay  with  his  body  when  the  fight 
ing  comes. 

General  Alger,  the  Secretary  of  War,  had  a  great 
liking  for  Roosevelt,  offered  him  a  commission  in  the 
Army,  and  even  the  command  of  a  regiment.  This 
he  prudently  declined,  having  no  technical  military 
knowledge.  He  proposed  instead,  that  Dr.  Leonard 
Wood  should  be  made  Colonel,  and  that  he  should 
serve  under  Wood  as  Lieu  tenant- Colonel.  By  pro 
fession,  Wood  was  a  physician,  who  had  graduated 
at  the  Harvard  Medical  School,  and  then  had  been 
a  contract  surgeon  with  the  American  Army  on  the 
plains.  In  this  service  he  went  through  the  roughest 
kind  of  campaigning  and,  being  ambitious,  and  hav 
ing  an  instinct  for  military  science,  he  studied  the 
manuals  and  learned  from  them  and  through  actual 
practice  the  principles  of  war.  In  this  way  he  became 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  123 

competent  to  lead  troops.  He  was  about  two  years 
younger  than  Roosevelt,  with  an  iron  frame,  great 
tenacity  and  endurance,  a  man  of  few  words,  but  of 
clear  sight  and  quick  decision. 

While  Roosevelt  finished  his  business  at  the  Navy 
Department,  Colonel  Wood  hurried  to  San  Antonio, 
Texas,  the  rendezvous  of  the  First  Regiment  of 
Volunteer  Cavalry.  A  call  for  volunteers,  issued  by 
Roosevelt  and  endorsed  by  Secretary  Alger,  spread 
through  the  West  and  Southwest,  and  it  met  with  a 
quick  response.  Not  even  in  Garibaldi's  famous 
Thousand  was  such  a  strange  crowd  gathered.  It 
comprised  cow-punchers,  ranchmen,  hunters,  pro 
fessional  gamblers  and  rascals  of  the  Border,  sports 
men,  mingled  with  the  society  sports,  former  foot 
ball  players  and  oarsmen,  polo-players  and  lovers  of 
adventure  from  the  great  Eastern  cities.  They  all 
had  one  quality  in  common  —  courage  —  and  they 
were  all  bound  together  by  one  common  bond,  devo 
tion  to  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Nearly  every  one  of 
them  knew  him  personally;  some  of  the  Western 
men  had  hunted  or  ranched  with  him;  some  of  the 
Eastern  had  been  with  him  in  college,  or  had  had 
contact  with  him  in  one  of  the  many  vicissitudes  of 
his  career.  It  was  a  remarkable  spectacle,  this  flock 
ing  to  a  man  not  yet  forty  years  old,  whose  chief 
work  up  to  that  time  had  been  in  the  supposed  com- 


124  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

monplace  position  of  a  Civil  Service  Commissioner 
and  of  a  New  York  Police  Commissioner!  But  Roose 
velt's  name  was  already  known  throughout  the 
country:  it  excited  great  admiration  in  many,  grave 
doubts  in  many,  and  curiosity  in  all. 

His  friends  urged  him  not  to  go.  It  seemed  to  some 
of  us  almost  wantonly  reckless  that  he  should  put 
his  life,  which  had  been  so  valuable  and  evidently 
held  the  promise  of  still  higher  achievement,  at  the 
risk  of  a  Spanish  bullet,  or  of  yellow  fever  in  Cuba, 
for  the  sake  of  a  cause  which  did  not  concern  the 
safety  of  his  country.  But  he  never  considered  risks 
or  chances.  He  felt  it  as  a  duty  that  we  must  free 
Cuba,  and  that  every  one  who  recognized  this  duty 
should  do  his  share  in  performing  it.  No  doubt  the 
excitement  and  the  noble  side  of  our  war  attracted 
him.  No  doubt,  also,  that  he  remembered  that  the 
reputation  of  a  successful  soldier  had  often  proved  a 
ladder  to  political  promotion  in  our  Republic.  Every 
reader  of  our  history,  though  he  were  the  dullest, 
understood  that.  But  that  was  not  the  chief  reason, 
or  even  an  important  one,  in  shaping  his  decision. 

He  went  to  San  Antonio  in  May,  and  worked 
without  respite  in  learning  the  rudiments  of  war  and 
in  teaching  them  to  his  motley  volunteers,  who  were 
already  called  by  the  public,  and  will  be  known  in  his 
tory,  as  the  "  Rough  Riders."  He  felt  relieved  when 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
ROOSEVELT  AS  A  ROUGH   RIDER 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  125 

"  Teddy's  Terrors/1  one  of  the  nicknames  proposed, 
did  not  stick  to  them.  At  the  end  of  the  month  the 
regiment  proceeded  to  Tampa,  Florida,  whence  part 
of  it  sailed  for  Cuba  on  the  transport  Yucatan.  It 
sufficiently  indicates  the  state  of  chaos  which  then 
reigned  in  our  Army  preparations,  that  half  the  regi 
ment  and  all  the  horses  and  mules  were  left  behind. 
Arrived  in  Cuba,  the  first  troops,  accustomed  only 
to  the  saddle,  had  to  hobble  along  as  best  they  could, 
on  foot,  so  that  some  wag  rechristened  them  "Wood's 
Weary  Walkers."  The  rest  of  the  regiment,  with  the 
mounts,  came  a  little  later,  and  at  Las  Guasimas 
they  had  their  first  skirmish  with  the  Spaniards. 
Eight  of  them  were  killed,  and  they  were  buried  in 
one  grave.  Afterward,  in  writing  the  history  of  the 
Rough  Riders,  Roosevelt  said:  "There  could  be  no 
more  honorable  burial  than  that  of  these  men  in  a 
common  grave  --  Indian  and  cowboy,  miner,  packer, 
and  college  athlete  —  the  man  of  unknown  ancestry 
from  the  lonely  Western  plains,  and  the  man  who 
carried  on  his  watch  the  crests  of  the  Stuyvesants 
and  the  Fishes,  one  in  the  way  they  had  met  death, 
just  as  during  life  they  had  been  one  in  their  daring 
and  their  loyalty."  l 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  follow  in  detail  the  story  of 
the  Rough  Riders,  but  shall  touch  only  on  those 

1  The  Rough  Riders,  120. 


126  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

matters  which  refer  to  Roosevelt  himself.  -Wood, 
having  been  promoted  to  Brigadier-General,  in  com 
mand  of  a  larger  unit,  Theodore  became  Colonel  of 
the  regiment.  On  July  I  and  2  he  commanded  the 
Rough  Riders  in  their  attack  on  and  capture  of  San 
Juan  Hill,  in  connection  with  some  colored  troops. 
In  this  engagement,  their  nearest  approach  to  a 
battle,  the  Rough  Riders,  who  had  less  than  five  hun 
dred  men  in  action,  lost  eighty-nine  in  killed  and 
wounded.  Then  followed  a  dreary  life  in  the  trenches 
until  Santiago  surrendered;  and  then  a  still  more 
terrible  experience  while  they  waited  for  Spain  to 
give  up  the  war.  Under  a  killing  tropical  sun,  receiv 
ing  irregular  and  often  damaged  food,  without  tent 
or  other  protection  from  the  heat  or  from  the  rain, 
the  Rough  Riders  endured  for  weeks  the  ravages  of 
fever,  climate,  and  privation.  To  realize  that  their 
sufferings  were  directly  owing  to  the  blunders  and 
incompetence  of  the  War  Department  at  home, 
brought  no  consolation,  for  the  soldiers  could  see  no 
reason  why  the  Department  should  not  go  on  blun 
dering  indefinitely.  One  of  the  Rough  Riders  told  me 
that,  when  stricken  with  fever,  he  lay  for  days  on 
the  beach,  and  that  anchored  within  the  distance  a 
tennis-ball  could  be  thrown  was  a  steamer  loaded 
with  medicines,  but  that  no  orders  were  given  to 
bring  them  ashore! 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  127 

The  Rough  Riders  were  hard  hit  by  disease,  but 
not  harder  than  the  other  regiments  in  the  Army. 
Every  one  of  their  officers,  except  the  Colonel  and 
another,  had  yellow  fever,  and  at  one  time  more 
than  half  of  the  regiment  was  sick.  A  terrible  depres 
sion  weighed  them  down.  They  almost  despaired, 
not  only  of  being  relieved,  but  of  living.  To  face  the 
entire  Spanish  Army  would  have  been  a  great  joy, 
compared  with  this  sinking,  melting  away,  against 
the  invisible  fever. 

The  Administration  at  Washington,  however,  al 
though  it  knew  the  condition  of  the  Army  in  Cuba, 
seemed  indifferent  rather  than  anxious,  and  talked 
about  moving  the  troops  into  the  interior,  to  the 
high  ground  round  San  Luis.  Thereupon,  Roosevelt 
wrote  to  General  Shafter,  his  commanding  officer: 

To  keep  us  here,  in  the  opinion  of  every  officer  commanding 
a  division  or  a  brigade,  will  simply  involve  the  destruction  of 
thousands.  There  is  no  possible  reason  for  not  shipping  prac 
tically  the  entire  command  North  at  once.  .  .  . 

All  of  us  are  certain,  as  soon  as  the  authorities  at  Washing 
ton  fully  appreciate  the  conditions  of  the  army,  to  be  sent 
home.  If  we  are  kept  here  it  will  in  all  human  probability 
mean  an  appalling  disaster,  for  the  surgeons  here  estimate 
that  over  half  the  army,  if  kept  here  during  the  sickly  season, 
will  die. 

This  is  not  only  terrible  from  the  standpoint  of  the  indi 
vidual  lives  lost,  but  it  means  ruin  from  the  standpoint  of 
military  efficiency  of  the  flower  of  the  American  Army,  for 
the  great  bulk  of  the  regulars  are  herewith  you.  The  sick-list, 


128  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

large  though  it  is,  exceeding  four  thousand,  affords  but  a 
faint  index  of  the  debilitation  of  the  army.  Not  ten  per  cent 
are  fit  for  active  work. 

This  letter  General  Shafter  really  desired  to  have 
written,  but  when  Roosevelt  handed  it  to  him,  he  hes 
itated  to  receive  it.  Still  Roosevelt  persisted,  left  it  in 
the  General's  hands,  and  the  General  gave  it  to  the 
correspondent  of  the  Associated  Press  who  was  pres 
ent.  A  few  hours  later  it  had  been  telegraphed  to  the 
United  States.  Shafter  called  a  council  of  war  of  the 
division  and  brigade  commanders,  which  he  invited 
Roosevelt  to  attend,  although  his  rank  as  Colonel  did 
not  entitle  him  to  take  part.  When  the  Generals  heard 
that  the  Army  was  to  be  kept  in  Cuba  all  summer 
and  sent  up  into  the  hills,  they  agreed  that  Roose 
velt's  protest  must  be  supported,  and  they  drew  up 
the  famous  ''Round  Robin"  in  which  they  repeated 
Roosevelt's  warnings.  Neither  President  McKinley 
nor  the  War  Department  could  be  deaf  to  such  a 
statement  as  this:  "This  army  must  be  moved  at 
once  or  perish.  As  the  army  can  be  safely  moved 
now,  the  persons  responsible  for  preventing  such  a 
move  will  be  responsible  for  the  unnecessary  loss  of 
many  thousands  of  lives." 

This  letter  also  was  immediately  published  at 
home,  and  outcries  of  horror  and  indignation  went 
up.  A  few  sticklers  for  military  etiquette  professed 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
WITH  GENERAL  JOSEPH  WHEELER  AND  LEONARD  WOOD 


THE  ROUGH  RIDER  129 

to  be  astonished  that  any  officer  should  be  guilty  of 
the  insubordination  which  these  letters  implied,  and, 
of  course,  the  blame  fell  on  Roosevelt.  The  truth  is 
that  Shafter,  dismayed  at  the  condition  of  the  Fifth 
Army,  and  at  his  own  inability  to  make  the  Govern 
ment  understand  the  frightful  doom  which  was  im 
pending,  deliberately  chose  Roosevelt  to  commit  the 
insubordination;  for,  as  he  was  a  volunteer  officer, 
soon  to  be  discharged,  the  act  could  not  harm  his 
future,  whereas  the  regular  officers  were  not  likely  to 
be  popular  with  the  War  Department  after  they  had 
called  the  attention  of  the  world  to  its  maleficent  in 
competence. 

Washington  heard  the  shot  fired  by  the  Colonel  of 
the  Rough  Riders,  and  without  loss  of  time  ordered 
the  Army  home.  The  sick  were  transported  by  thou 
sands  to  Montauk  Point,  at  the  eastern  end  of  Long 
Island,  where,  in  spite  of  the  best  medical  care  which 
could  be  improvised,  large  numbers  of  them  died. 
But  the  Army  knew,  and  the  American  public  knew, 
that  Roosevelt,  by  his  "  insubordination,"  had  saved 
multitudes  of  lives.  At  Montauk  Point  he  was  the 
most  popular  man  in  America. 

This  concluded  Roosevelt's  c^reer_as  a  soldier.  The 
experience  introduced  to  the  public  those  virile  qual 
ities  of  his  with  which  his  friends  were  familiar.  He 
had  not  endured  the  hardships  of  ranching  and  hunt- 


130  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ing  in  vain.  If  life  on  the  Plains  democratized  him,  life 
with  the  Rough  Riders  did  also;  indeed,  without  the 
former  there  would  have  been  no  Rough  Riders  and 
no  Colonel  Roosevelt.  He  learned  not  only  how  to 
lead  a  regiment  according  to  the  tactics  of  that  day, 
but  also  —  and  this  was  far  more  important  —  he 
learned  how  disasters  and  the  waste  of  lives,  and 
treasure,  and  the  ignominy  of  a  disgracefully  man 
aged  campaign,  sprang  directly  from  unpreparedness. 
This  burned  indelibly  into  his  memory.  It  stimulated 
all  his  subsequent  appeals  to  make  the  Army  and 
Navy  large  enough  for  any  probable  sudden  demand 
upon  them. ' '  America  the  Unready ' '  had  won  the  war 
against  a  decrepit,  impoverished,  third-rate  power, 
but  had  paid  for  her  victory  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  and  tens  of  thousands  of  lives;  what  would 
the  count  have  mounted  to  had  she  been  pitted 
against  a  really  formidable  foe?  Would  she  have  won 
at  all  against  any  enemy  fully  prepared  and  of  nearly 
equal  strength?  Many  of  us  dismissed  Roosevelt's 
warnings  then  as  the  outpourings  of  a  Jingo,  of  one 
who  loved  war  for  war's  sake,  and  wished  to  graft 
onto  the  peaceful  traditions  and  standards  of  our 
Republic  the  militarism  of  Europe.  We  misjudged 
him. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  —  VICE-PRESIDENT 

WHILE  Roosevelt  was  at  Montauk  Point  wait 
ing  with  his  regiment  to  be  mustered  out,  and 
cheering  up  the  sick  soldiers,  he  had  direct  proof 
that  every  war  breeds  a  President.  For  the  politi 
cians  went  down  to  call  on  him  and,  although  they 
did  not  propose  that  he  should  be  a  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  —  that  was  not  a  Presidential  year  — 
they  Ipoked  him  over  to  see  how  he  would  do  for 
Governor  of  New  York.  Since  Cleveland  set  the 
fashion  in  1882,  the  New  York  governorship  was 
regarded  as  the  easiest  stepping-stone  to  the  Presi 
dency.  Roosevelt's  popularity  was  so  great  that  if 
the  matter  had  been  left  in  the  hands  of  the  people, 
he  would  have  been  nominated  with  a  rush ;  but  the 
Empire  State  was  dominated  by  Bosses  —  Senator 
David  B.  Hill,  the  Democratic  State  Boss,  Senator 
Thomas  C.  Platt,  the  Republican  State  Boss,  and 
Richard  Croker,  Boss  of  Tammany,  —  who  had  in 
timate  relations  with  the  wicked  of  both  parties,  and 
often  decided  an  election  by  throwing  their  votes  or 
withholding  them. 

Senator  Platt  enjoyed,  with  Senator  Quay  of  Penn- 


132  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

sylvania,  the  evil  reputation  of  being  the  most  un 
scrupulous  Boss  in  the  United  States.  I  do  not  under 
take  to  say  whether  the  palm  should  go  to  him  or  to 
Quay,  but  no  one  disputes  that  Platt  held  New  York 
State  in  his  hand,  or  that  Quay  held  Pennsylvania  in 
his.  By  the  year  1898,  both  were  recognized  as  repre 
senting  a  type  of  Boss  that  was  becoming  extinct. 
The  business-man  type,  of  which  Senator  Aldrich  was 
a  perfect  exponent,  was  pushing  to  the  front.  Quay, 
greedy  of  money,  had  never  made  a  pretense  of  show 
ing  even  a  conventional  respect  for  the  Eighth  Com 
mandment;  Platt,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  not  to 
have  enriched  himself  by  his  political  deals,  but  to 
have  taken  his  pay  in  the  gratification  he  enjoyed 
from  wielding  autocratic  power.  Platt  also  betrayed 
that  he  dated  from  the  last  generation  by  his  re 
ligiosity.  He  used  his  piety  as  an  elephant  uses  his 
proboscis,  to  reach  about  and  secure  desired  objects, 
large  or  small,  the  trunk  of  a  tree  or  a  bag  of  peanuts. 
He  was  a  Sunday-School  teacher  and,  I  believe,  a 
deacon  of  his  church.  Roosevelt  says  that  he  occa 
sionally  interlarded  his  political  talk  with  theological 
discussion,  but  that  his  very  dry  theology  was  wholly 
divorced  from  moral  implications.  The  wonderful 
chapter  on  "The  New  York  Governorship,"  in 
Roosevelt's  "  Autobiography, "  ought  to  be  read  by 
every  American,  because  it  gives  the  most  remarka- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  133 

ble  account  of  the  actual  working  of  the  political 
Machine  in  a  great  American  State,  the  disguises 
that  Machine  wore,  its  absolute  unscrupulousness, 
its  wickedness,  its  purpose  to  destroy  the  ideals  of 
democracy.  And  Roosevelt's  analysis  of  Platt  may 
stand  alongside  of  Machiavelli's  portraits  of  the 
Italian  Bosses  four  hundred  years  before  —  they 
were  not  called  Bosses  then. 

Senator  Platt  did  not  wish  to  have  Roosevelt  hold 
the  governorship,  or  any  other  office  in  which  the 
independent  young  man  might  worry  the  wily  old 
Senator.1  But  the  Republican  Party  in  New  York 
State  happened  to  be  in  such  a  very  bad  condition 
that  the  likelihood  that  it  would  carry  the  election 
that  autumn  was  slight :  for  the  public  had  tempo 
rarily  tired  of  Machine  rule.  Platt's  managers  saw 
that  they  must  pick  out  a  really  strong  candidate  and 
they  understood  that  nobody  at  that  moment  could 
rival  Roosevelt's  popularity.  So  they  impressed  on 
Platt  that  he  must  accept  the  Rough  Rider  Chief, 
and  Mr.  Lemuel  Quigg,  an  ex-Congressman,  a  jour 
nalist  formerly  on  the  New  York  Tribune,  a  stanch 
Republican,  who  nevertheless  recognized  that  dis 
cretion  and  intelligence  might  sometimes  be  allowed 
a  voice  in  Machine  dictation,  journeyed  to  Montauk 
and  had  a  friendly,  frank  conversation  with  the 
Colonel. 

1  Platt  and  Quay  were  both  born  in  1833. 


134  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Quigg  spoke  for  nobody  but  himself;  he  merely 
wished  to  sound  Roosevelt.  Roosevelt  made  no 
pledges;  he  defined  his  general  attitude  and  wished 
to  understand  what  the  Platt  Machine  proposed. 
Quigg  said  that  Platt  admitted  that  the  present  Gov 
ernor,  Black,  could  not  be  reflected,  but  that  he  had 
doubts  as  to  Roosevelt's  docility.  Republican  lead 
ers  and  local  chairmen  in  all  parts  of  the  State,  how 
ever,  enthusiastically  called  for  Roosevelt,  and  Quigg 
did  not  wish  to  have  the  Republican  Party  split  into 
two  factions.  He  believed  that  Platt  would  accede 
if  he  could  be  convinced  that  Roosevelt  would  not 
"make  war  on  him."  Roosevelt,  without  promising 
anything,  replied  that  he  had  no  intention  of  mak 
ing  "war  on  Mr.  Platt,  or  on  anybody  else,  if  war 
could  be  avoided."  He  said 

that  what  [he]  wanted  was  to  be  Governor  and  not  a  faction 
leader ;  that  [he]  certainly  would  confer  with  the  organization 
men,  as  with  everybody  else  who  seemed  to  [him]  to  have 
knowledge  of  and  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  that  as  to 
Mr.  Platt  and  the  organization  leaders,  [he]  would  do  so  in 
the  sincere  hope  that  there  might  always  result  harmony  of 
opinion  and  purpose;  but  that  while  [he]  would  try  to  get  on 
well  with  the  organization,  the  organization  must  with  equal 
sincerity  strive  to  do  what  [he]  regarded  as  essential  for  the 
public  good;  and  that  in  every  case,  after  full  consideration 
of  what  everybody  had  to  say  who  might  possess  real  knowl 
edge  of  the  matter,  [he]  should  have  to  act  finally  as  [his] 
own  judgment  and  conscience  dictated,  and  administer  the 
State  Government  as  [he]  thought  it  ought  to  be  administered.1 

1  Autobiography,  295. 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  135 

Having  assured  Roosevelt  that  his  statements 
were  exactly  what  Quigg  expected,  Quigg  returned 
to  New  York  City,  reported  his  conversation  to 
Platt,  and,  in  due  season,  the  free  citizens  of  New 
York  learned  that,  with  Platt's  consent,  the  Colonel 
of  the  Rough  Riders  would  be  nominated  by  the  Re 
publican  State  Convention  for  the  governorship  of 
New  York. 

During  the  campaign,  Roosevelt  stumped  the 
State  at  a  pace  unknown  till  then.  It  was  his  first 
real  campaign,  and  he  went  from  place  to  place  in  a 
special  train  speaking  at  every  stop  from  his  car 
platform  or,  in  the  larger  towns,  staying  long  enough 
to  address  great  audiences  out  of  doors  or  in  the  local 
theatre.  In  November,  he  was  elected  by  a  majority 
of  18,000,  a  slender  margin  as  it  looks  now,  but  suffi 
cient  for  its  purpose,  and  representing  a  really  nota 
ble  victory,  because  it  had  been  expected  that  the 
Democrats  would  beat  any  other  Republican  can 
didate  but  him  by  overwhelming  odds.  So,  after 
an  absence  of  fifteen  years,  he  returned  to  dwell  in 
Albany. 

Before  he  was  sworn  in  as  Governor,  he  had  al 
ready  measured  strength  with  Senator  Platt.  The 
Senator  asked  him  with  amiable  condescension 
whether  he  had  any  special  friends  he  would  like 
to  have  appointed  on  the  committees.  Roosevelt 


136  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

expressed  surprise,  supposing  that  the  Speaker  ap 
pointed  committees.  Then  Platt  told  him  that  the 
Speaker  had  not  been  agreed  upon  yet,  but  that  of 
course  he  would  name  the  list  given  to  him.  Roose 
velt  understood  the  situation,  but  said  nothing.  A 
week  later,  however,  at  another  conference,  Platt 
handed  him  a  telegram,  in  which  the  sender  accepted 
with  pleasure  his  appointment  as  Superintendent  of 
Public  Works.  Roosevelt  liked  this  man  and  thought 
him  honest,  but  he  did  not  think  him  the  best  person 
for  that  particular  work,  and  he  did  not  intend  as 
Governor  to  have  his  appointments  dictated  to  him, 
because  he  would  naturally  be  held  responsible  for 
his  appointees.  When  he  told  Platt  that  that  man 
would  not  do,  the  Senator  flew  into  a  passion;  he  had 
never  met  such  insubordination  before  in  any  public 
official,  and  he  decided  to  fight  the  issue  from  the 
start.  Roosevelt  did  not  allow  himself  to  lose  his  tem 
per;  he  was  perfectly  polite  while  Platt  let  loose  his 
fury;  and  before  they  parted  Platt  understood  which 
was  master.  The  Governor  appointed  Colonel  Par 
tridge  to  the  position  and,  as  it  had  chiefly  to  do  with 
the  canals  of  the  State,  it  was  most  important.  In 
deed,  the  canal  scandals  under  Roosevelt's  prede 
cessor,  Governor  Black,  had  so  roused  the  popular 
conscience  that  it  threatened  to  break  down  the  su 
premacy  of  the  Republican  Party. 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  137 

Jacob  Riis  describes  Roosevelt's  administration  as 
introducing  the  Ten  Commandments  into  the  gov 
ernment  at  Albany,  and  we  need  hardly  be  told  that 
the  young  Governor  applied  his  usual  methods  and 
promoted  his  favorite  reforms.  Finding  the  Civil 
Service  encrusted  with  abuses,  he  pushed  legislation 
which  established  a  high  standard  of  reform.  The 
starch  which  had  been  taken  out  of  the  Civil  Service 
Law  under  Governor  Black  was  put  back,  stiffened. 
He  insisted  on  enforcing  the  Factory  Law,  for  the 
protection  of  operatives;  and  the  law  regulating 
sweat-shops,  which  he  inspected  himself,  with  Riis 
for  his  companion. 

Perhaps  his  hottest  battle  was  over  the  law  to  tax 
corporations  which  held  public  franchises.  This 
touched  the  owners  of  street  railways  in  the  cities  and 
towns,  and  many  other  corporations  which  enjoyed 
a  monopoly  in  managing  quasi-public  utilities.  "In 
politics  there  is  no  politics, "  said  that  elderly  early 
mentor  of  Roosevelt  when  he  first  sat  in  the  Assem 
bly.  Legislatures  existed  simply  to  do  the  bidding 
of  Big  Business,  was  the  creed  of  the  men  who  con 
trolled  Big  Business.  They  contributed  impartially 
to  the  Republican  and  Democratic  campaign  funds. 
They  had  Republican  Assemblymen  and  Democratic 
Assemblymen  in  their  service,  and  their  lobbyists 
worked  harmoniously  with  either  party.  Merely  to 


138  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

suggest  that  the  special  privileges  of  the  corpora 
tions  might  be  open  to  discussion  was  sacrilege.  No 
wonder,  therefore,  that  the  holders  of  public  fran 
chises  marshaled  all  their  forces  against  the  Gov 
ernor. 

Boss  Platt  wrote  Roosevelt  a  letter  —  one  of  the 
sort  inspired  more  by  sorrow  than  by  anger  —  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  been  warned  that  the  Gover 
nor  was  a  little  loose  on  the  relations  of  capital  and 
labor,  on  trusts  and  combinations,  and,  in  general, 
on  the  right  of  a  man  to  run  his  business  as  he  chose, 
aways  respecting,  of  course,  the  Ten  Command 
ments  and  the  Penal  Code.  The  Senator  was  shocked 
and  pained  to  perceive  that  this  warning  had  a  real 
basis,  and  that  the  Governor's  " altruism"  in  behalf 
of  the  people  had  led  him  to  urge  curtailing  the 
rights  of  corporations.  Roosevelt,  instead  of  feeling 
contrite  at  this  chiding,  redoubled  his  energy.  The 
party  managers  buried  the  bill.  Roosevelt  then  sent 
a  special  message,  as  the  New  York  Governors  are 
empowered  to  do.  It  was  laid  on  the  Speaker's  desk, 
but  no  notice  was  taken  of  it.  The  next  morning  he 
sent  this  second  message  to  the  Speaker: 

I  learn  that  the  emergency  message  which  I  sent  last  eve 
ning  to  the  Assembly  on  behalf  of  the  Franchise  Tax  Bill  has 
not  been  read.  I,  therefore,  send  hereby  another.  I  need  not 
impress  upon  the  Assembly  the  need  of  passing  this  bill  at 
once.  ...  It  establishes  the  principle  that  hereafter  corpora- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  139 

tions  holding  franchises  from  the  public  shall  pay  their  just 
share  of  the  public  burden.1 

The  Speaker,  the  Assembly,  and  the  Machine  now 
gave  heed.  The  corporations  saw  that  it  would  be 
suicidal  to  bring  down  on  themselves  the  avalanche 
of  fury  which  was  accumulating.  The  bill  passed. 
Roosevelt  had  set  a  precedent  for  controlling  cor 
porate  truculence. 

While  Roosevelt  was  accomplishing  these  very 
real  triumphs  for  justice  and  popular  welfare,  the 
professional  critics  went  on  finding  fault  with  him. 
Although  the  passage  of  one  bill  after  another  gave 
tangible  proof  that,  far  from  being  Platt's  "man," 
or  the  slave  of  the  Machine,  he  followed  his  own 
ideals,  did  not  satisfy  these  critics.  They  suspected 
that  there  was  some  wickedness  behind  it,  and  they 
professed  to  be  greatly  disturbed  that  Roosevelt  fre 
quently  breakfasted  or  dined  with  Platt.  What  could 
this  mean  except  that  he  took  his  instructions  from 
the  Boss?  How  could  he,  who  made  a  pretense  of 
righteousness,  consent  to  visit  the  Sunday-School 
political  teacher,  much  less  to  sit  at  the  table  with 
him?  The  doubts  and  anxieties  of  these  self-ap 
pointed  defenders  of  public  morals,  and  of  the  Re 
public  even,  found  a  spokesman  in  a  young  journalist 
who  had  then  come  recently  from  college.  This  per- 

1  Riis,  221. 


140  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

son,  whom  we  will  call  X.,  met  Mr.  Roosevelt  at  a 
public  reception  and  with  the  brusqueness,  to  put  it 
mildly,  of  a  hereditary  reformer,  he  demanded  to 
know  why  the  Governor  breakfasted  and  dined  with 
Boss  Platt.  Mr.  Roosevelt  replied,  with  that  cour 
tesy  of  his  which  was  never  more  complete  than 
when  it  conveyed  his  sarcasm,  that  a  person  in  pub 
lic  office,  like  himself,  was  obliged  to  meet  officially 
all  kinds  of  men  and  women,  and  he  added:  "  Why, 
Mr.  X.,  I  have  even  dined  with  your  father."  X.  did 
not  pursue  his  investigation,  and  the  bystanders, 
who  had  vague  recollections  of  the  father's  misfor 
tunes  in  Wall  Street,  thought  that  the  son  was  a 
little  indiscreet  even  for  a  hereditary  reformer. 

The  truth  about  Roosevelt's  going  to  Platt  and 
breakfasting  with  him  was  very  simple.  The  Senator 
spent  the  week  till  Friday  afternoon  in  Washington, 
then  he  came  to  New  York  for  Saturday  and  Sunday. 
Being  somewhat  infirm,  although  he  was  not,  as  we 
now  reckon,  an  old  man,  he  did  not  care  to  extend 
his  trip  to  Albany,  and  so  the  young  and  vigorous 
Governor  ran  down  from  Albany  and,  at  breakfast 
with  Platt,  discussed  New  York  State  affairs.  What 
I  have  already  quoted  indicates,  I  think,  that  no 
body  knew  better  than  the  Boss  himself  that  Roose 
velt  was  not  his  "man." 

One  other  example  is  too  good  to  omit.  The  Super- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  141 

intendent  of  Insurance  was  really  one  of  Platt's  men, 
and  a  person  most  grateful  to  the  insurance  com 
panies.  Governor  Roosevelt,  regarding  him  as  unfit, 
not  only  declined  to  reappoint  him,  but  actually  ap 
pointed  in  his  stead  a  superintendent  whom  Platt 
and  the  insurance  companies  could  not  manage,  and 
so  hated.  Platt  remonstrated.  Finding  his  arguments 
futile,  he  broke  out  in  threats  that  if  his  man  was 
not  reappointed,  he  would  fight.  He  would  forbid 
the  Assembly  to  confirm  Roosevelt's  candidate. 
Roosevelt  replied  that  as  soon  as  the  Assembly  ad 
journed,  he  should  appoint  his  candidate  tempo 
rarily.  Platt  declared  that  when  it  reconvened,  the 
Assembly  would  throw  him  out.  This  did  not,  how 
ever,  frighten  Roosevelt,  who  remarked  that,  al 
though  he  foresaw  he  should  have  an  uncomfortable 
time  himself,  he  would  "  guarantee  to  make  his 
opponents  more  uncomfortable  still." 

Later  that  day  Platt  sent  one  of  his  henchmen  to 
deliver  an  ultimatum  to  the  Governor.  He  repeated 
Platt's  threats,  but  was  unable  to  make  an  impres 
sion.  Roosevelt  got  up  to  go.  "You  know  it  means 
your  ruin?"  said  the  henchman  solemnly.  "Well, 
we  will  see  about  that,"  Roosevelt  replied,  and  had 
nearly  reached  the  door  when  the  henchman,  anxious 
to  give  the  prospective  victim  a  last  chance,  warned 
him  that  the  Senator  would  open  the  fight  on  the 


142  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

next  day,  and  keep  it  up  to  the  bitter  end.  "Yes," 
replied  the  Governor ;  ' '  good-night. ' '  And  he  was  j  ust 
going  out,  when  the  henchman  rushed  after  him,  call 
ing,  "  Hold  on!  We  accept.  Send  in  your  nomination. 
The  Senator  is  very  sorry,  but  will  make  no  further 
opposition."  1  Roosevelt  adds  that  the  bluff  was 
carried  through  to  the  limit,  but  that  after  it  failed, 
Platt  did  not  renew  his  attempt  to  interfere  with  him. 

Nevertheless,  Roosevelt  made  no  war  on  Platt  or 
anybody  else,  merely  for  the  fun  of  it.  "We  must 
use  the  tools  we  have,"  said  Lincoln  to  John  Hay; 
and  Lincoln  also  had  many  tools  which  he  did  not 
choose,  but  which  he  had  to  work  with.  Roosevelt 
differed  from  the  doctrinaire  reformer,  who  would 
sit  still  and  do  nothing  unless  he  had  perfectly  clean 
tools  and  pure  conditions  to  work  with.  To  do  noth 
ing  until  the  millennium  came  would  mean,  of 
course,  that  the  Machine  would  pursue  its  methods 
undisturbed.  Roosevelt,  on  the  contrary,  knew  that 
by  cooperating  with  the  Machine,  as  far  as  his  con 
science  permitted,  he  could  reach  results  much  better 
than  it  aimed  at. 

Here  are  three  of  his  letters  to  Platt,  written  at  a 
time  when  the  young  journalist  and  the  reformers  of 
his  stripe  shed  tears  at  the  thought  that  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  the  obsequious  servant  of  Boss  Platt. 

1  Autobiography,  317. 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  143 

The  first  letter  refers  to  Roosevelt's  nomination 
to  the  Vice-Presidency,  a  possibility  which  the  public 
was  already  discussing.  The  last  two  letters,  written 
after  he  had  been  nominated  by  the  Republicans, 
relate  to  the  person  whom  he  wished  to  see  succeed 
himself  as  Governor  of  New  York. 

ROOSEVELT  TO  PL  ATT 

February  I,  1900 

First,  and  least  important.  If  you  happened  to  have  seen 
the  Evening  Post  recently,  you  ought  to  be  amused,  for  it  is 
moralizing  with  lofty  indignation  over  the  cringing  servility 
I  have  displayed  in  the  matter  of  the  insurance  superintend 
ent.  I  fear  it  will  soon  take  the  view  that  it  cannot  possibly 
support  you  as  long  as  you  associate  with  me ! 

Now  as  to  serious  matters.  I  have,  of  course,  done  a  great 
deal  of  thinking  about  the  Vice-Presidency  since  the  talk  I 
had  with  you  followed  by  the  letter  from  Lodge  and  the  visit 
from  Payne,  of  Wisconsin.  I  have  been  reserving  the  matter 
to  talk  over  with  you,  but  in  view  of  the  publication  in  the 
Sun  this  morning,  I  would  like  to  begin  the  conversation,  as 
it  were,  by  just  a  line  or  two  now.  I  need  not  speak  of  the 
confidence  I  have  in  the  judgment  of  you  and  Lodge,  yet  I 
can't  help  feeling  more  and  more  that  the  Vice-Presidency  is 
not  an  office  in  which  I  could  do  anything  and  not  an  office 
in  which  a  man  who  is  still  vigorous  and  not  past  middle  life 
has  much  chance  of  doing  anything.  As  you  know,  I  am  of  an 
active  nature.  In  spite  of  all  the  work  and  all  the  worry,  — 
and  very  largely  because  of  your  own  constant  courtesy  and 
consideration,  my  dear  Senator,  —  I  have  thoroughly  en 
joyed  being  Governor.  I  have  kept  every  promise,  express  or 
implied,  I  made  on  the  stump,  and  I  feel  that  the  Republican 
Party  is  stronger  before  the  State  because  of  my  incumbency. 


I44  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Certainly  everything  is  being  managed  now  on  a  perfectly 
straight  basis  and  every  office  is  as  clean  as  a  whistle. 

Now,  I  should  like  to  be  Governor  for  another  term,  espe 
cially  if  we  are  able  to  take  hold  of  the  canals  in  serious  shape. 
But  as  Vice-President,  I  don't  see  there  is  anything  I  can  do. 
I  would  simply  be  a  presiding  officer,  and  that  I  should  find 
a  bore.  As  you  know,  I  am  a  man  of  moderate  means  (al 
though  I  am  a  little  better  off  than  the  Sun's  article  would 
indicate)  and  I  should  have  to  live  very  simply  in  Washington 
and  could  not  entertain  in  any  way  as  Mr.  Hobart  and  Mr. 
Morton  entertained.  My  children  are  all  growing  up  and  I  find 
the  burden  of  their  education  constantly  heavier,  so  that  I 
am  by  no  means  sure  that  I  ought  to  go  into  public  life  at  all, 
provided  some  remunerative  work  offered  itself.  The  only 
reason  I  would  like  to  go  on  is  that  as  I  have  not  been  a  money 
maker  I  feel  rather  in  honor  bound  to  leave  my  children  the 
equivalent  in  a  way  of  a  substantial  sum  of  actual  achieve 
ment  in  politics  or  letters.  Now,  as  Governor,  I  can  achieve 
something,  but  as  Vice-President  I  should  achieve  nothing. 
The  more  I  look  at  it,  the  less  I  feel  as  if  the  Vice-Presidency 
offered  anything  to  me  that  would  warrant  my  taking  it. 

Of  course,  I  shall  not  say  anything  until  I  hear  from  you, 
and  possibly  not  until  I  see  you,  but  I  did  want  you  to  know 
just  how  I  felt. 

ROOSEVELT  TO  PLATT 

Oyster  Bay,  August  13,  1900 

I  noticed  in  Saturday's  paper  that  you  had  spoken  of  my 
suggesting  Judge  Andrews.  I  did  not  intend  to  make  the  sug 
gestion  public,  and  I  wrote  you  with  entire  freedom,  hoping 
that  perhaps  I  could  suggest  some  man  who  would  commend 
himself  to  your  judgment  as  being  acceptable  generally  to 
the  Republican  Party.  I  am  an  organization  Republican  of  a 
very  strong  type,  as  I  understand  the  word  " organization," 
but  in  trying  to  suggest  a  candidate  for  Governor,  I  am  not 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  145 

seeking  either  to  put  up  an  organization  or  a  non-organization 
man,  but  simply  a  first-class  Republican,  who  will  commend 
himself  to  all  Republicans,  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  to  all 
citizens  who  wish  good  government.  Judge  Andrews  needs 
no  endorsement  from  any  man  living  as  to  his  Republicanism. 
From  the  time  he  was  Mayor  of  Syracuse  through  his  long 
and  distinguished  service  on  the  bench  he  has  been  recognized 
as  a  Republican  and  a  citizen  of  the  highest  type.  I  write  this 
because  your  interview  seems  to  convey  the  impression,  which 
I  am  sure  you  did  not  mean  to  convey,  that  in  some  way  my 
suggestions  are  antagonistic  to  the  organization.  I  do  not 
understand  quite  what  you  mean  by  the  suggestion  of  my 
friends,  for  I  do  not  know  who  the  men  are  to  whom  you  thus 
refer,  nor  why  they  are  singled  out  for  reference  as  making 
any  suggestions  about  the  Governorship. 

In  your  last  interview,  I  understood  that  you  wished  me  to 
be  back  in  the  State  at  the  time  of  the  convention.  As  I  wish 
to  be  able  to  give  the  nominee  hearty  and  effective  support, 
this  necessarily  means  that  I  do  have  a  great  interest  in  whom 
is  nominated. 

ROOSEVELT  TO  PLATT 

Oyster  Bay,  August  20,  1900 

I  have  your  letter  of  the  i6th.  I  wish  to  see  a  straight  Re 
publican  nomination  for  the  governorship.  The  men  whom  I 
have  mentioned,  such  as  ex-Judge  Andrews  and  Secretary 
Root,  are  as  good  Republicans  as  can  be  found  in  the  State, 
and  I  confess  I  have  n't  the  slightest  idea  what  you  mean 
when  you  say,  "if  we  are  to  lower  the  standard  and  nominate 
such  men  as  you  suggest,  we  might  as  well  die  first  as  last." 
To  nominate  such  a  man  as  either  of  these  is  to  raise  the 
standard ;  to  speak  of  it  as  lowering  the  standard  is  an  utter 
misuse  of  words. 

You  say  that  we  must  nominate  some  Republican  who 
"will  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  organization,"  and  add  that 


146  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

"  I  have  not  yet  made  up  my  mind  who  that  man  is."  Of  one 
thing  I  am  certain,  that,  to  have  it  publicly  known  that  the 
candidate,  whoever  he  may  be,  "will  carry  out  the  wishes  of 
the  organization,"  would  insure  his  defeat;  for  such  a  state 
ment  implies  that  he  would  merely  register  the  decrees  of  a 
small  body  of  men  inside  the  Republican  Party,  instead  of 
trying  to  work  for  the  success  of  the  party  as  a  whole  and  of 
good  citizenship  generally.  It  is  not  the  business  of  a  Governor 
to  "carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  organization"  unless  these 
wishes  coincide  with  the  good  of  the  Party  and  of  the  State. 
If  they  do,  then  he  ought  to  have  them  put  into  effect;  if  they 
do  not,  then  as  a  matter  of  course  he  ought  to  disregard  them. 
To  pursue  any  other  course  would  be  to  show  servility ;  and  a 
servile  man  is  always  an  undesirable  —  not  to  say  a  contempt 
ible  —  public  servant.  A  Governor  should,  of  course,  try  in 
good  faith  to  work  with  the  organization ;  but  under  no  cir 
cumstances  should  he  be  servile  to  it,  or  "  carry  out  its  wishes  " 
unless  his  own  best  judgment  is  that  they  ought  to  be  carried 
out.  I  am  a  good  organization  man  myself,  as  I  understand  the 
word  "organization,"  but  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  foolish 
to  make  a  fetish  of  the  word  "organization  "  and  to  treat  any 
man  or  any  small  group  of  men  as  embodying  the  organiza 
tion.  The  organization  should  strive  to  give  effective,  intelli 
gent,  and  honest  leadership  to  and  representation  of  the 
Republican  Party,  just  as  the  Republican  Party  strives  to 
give  wise  and  upright  government  to  the  State.  When  what 
I  have  said  ceases  to  be  true  of  either  organization  or  party, 
it  means  that  the  organization  or  party  is  not  performing  its 
duty,  and  is  losing  the  reason  for  its  existence.1 

Roosevelt's  independence  as  Governor  of  New 
York,  and  the  very  important  reforms  which,  in 
spite  of  the  Machine,  he  had  driven  through,  greatly 
increased  his  personal  popularity  throughout  the 

1  Washburn,  34-38. 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  147 

country.  To  citizens,  East  and  West,  who  knew 
nothing  about  the  condition  of  the  factories,  canals, 
and  insurance  institutions  in  New  York  State,  the 
name  "Roosevelt"  stood  for  a  man  as  honest  as  he 
was  energetic,  and  as  fearless  as  he  was  true.  Platt 
and  the  Machine  naturally  wished  to  get  rid  of  this 
marplot,  who  could  not  be  manipulated,  who  held 
strange  and  subversive  ideas  as  to  the  extent  to 
which  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the  Penal  Code 
should  be  allowed  to  encroach  on  politics  and  Big 
Business,  and  who  was  hopelessly  " altruistic"  in 
caring  for  the  poor  and  down-trodden  and  outcast. 
Even  Platt  knew  that,  while  it  would  not  be  safe  for 
him  to  try  to  dominate  the  popular  hero  against  his 
own  preference  and  that  of  the  public,  still  to  shelve 
Roosevelt  in  the  office  of  Vice-President  would  bring 
peace  to  the  sadly  disturbed  Boss,  and  would  restore 
jobs  to  many  of  his  greedy  followers.  So  he  talked  up 
the  Vice- Presidency  for  Roosevelt,  and  he  let  the 
impression  circulate  that  in  the  autumn  there  would 
be  a  new  Governor. 

Roosevelt,  however,  repeated  to  many  persons  the 
views  he  wrote  to  Platt  in  the  letter  quoted  above, 
and  his  friends  and  opponents  both  understood  that 
he  wished  to  continue  as  Governor  for  another  two 
years,  to  carry  on  the  fight  against  corruption,  and 
to  save  himself  from  being  laid  away  in  the  Vice- 


148  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Presidency  —  the  receiving-tomb  of  many  ambitious 
politicians.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  within  thirty- 
five  years,  by  the  assassination  of  two  Presidents, 
two  Vice-Presidents  had  succeeded  to  the  highest 
office  in  the  Nation,  Vice-Presidents  were  popularly 
regarded  as  being  mere  phantoms  without  any  real 
power  or  influence  as  long  as  their  term  lasted,  and 
cut  off  from  all  hopes  in  the  future.  Roosevelt  him 
self  had  this  notion.  But  the  Presidential  conven 
tions,  with  criminal  disregard  of  the  qualifications  of 
a  candidate  to  perform  the  duties  of  President  if 
accident  thrust  them  upon  him,  went  on  recklessly 
nominating  nonentities  for  Vice-President. 

The  following  extract  from  a  confidential  letter 
by  John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State,  to  Mr.  Henry 
White,  at  the  American  Embassy  in  London,  reveals 
the  attitude  towards  Roosevelt  of  the  Administra 
tion  itself.  Allowance  must  be  made,  of  course,  for 
Hay's  well-known  habit  of  persiflage: 

HAY  TO  HENRY  WHITE 

Teddy  has  been  here :  have  you  heard  of  it?  It  was  more  fun 
than  a  goat.  He  came  down  with  a  sombre  resolution  thrown 
on  his  strenuous  brow  to  let  McKinley  and  Hanna  know 
once  for  all  that  he  would  not  be  Vice-President,  and  found 
to  his  stupefaction  that  nobody  in  Washington,  except  Platt, 
had  ever  dreamed  of  such  a  thing.  He  did  not  even  have  a 
chance  to  launch  his  nolo  episcopari  at  the  Major.  That  states 
man  said  he  did  not  want  him  on  the  ticket  —  that  he  would 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK  149 

be  far  more  valuable  in  New  York  —  and  Root  said,  with  his 
frank  and  murderous  smile,  "Of  course  not  —  you're  not  fit 
for  it."  And  so  he  went  back  quite  eased  in  his  mind,  but  con 
siderably  bruised  in  his  amour  propre. 

In  February,  Roosevelt  issued  a  public  notice  that 
he  would  not  consent  to  run  for  the  Vice- Presidency, 
and  throughout  the  spring,  until  the  meeting  of  the 
Republican  Convention  in  Philadelphia,  on  June 
2  ist,  he  clung  to  that  determination.  Platt,  anxious 
lest  Roosevelt  should  be  reflected  Governor  against 
the  plans  of  the  Machine,  quietly  worked  up  a 
"boom"  for  Roosevelt's  nomination  as  Vice-Presi 
dent  ;  and  he  connived  with  Quay  to  steer  the  Penn 
sylvania  delegation  in  the  same  direction.  The  dele 
gates  met  and  renominated  McKinley  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Then,  with  irresistible  pressure,  they  in 
sisted  on  nominating  Roosevelt.  Swept  off  his  feet, 
and  convinced  that  the  demand  came  genuinely 
from  representatives  from  all  over  the  country,  he 
accepted,  and  was  chosen  by  acclamation.  The  Boss- 
led  delegations  from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
added  their  votes  to  those  of  the  real  Roosevelt 
enthusiasts. 

Happy,  pious  Tom  Platt,  relieved  from  the  night 
mare  of  having  to  struggle  for  two  years  more  with 
a  Reform  Governor  at  Albany!  Some  of  Roosevelt's 
critics  construed  his  yielding,  at  the  last  moment,  as 


150  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

evidence  of  his  being  ruled  by  Platt  after  all.  But  this 
insinuation  collapsed  as  soon  as  the  facts  were  known. 
As  an  episode  in  the  annals  of  political  sport,  I 
should  like  to  have  had  Roosevelt  run  for  Governor 
a  second  time,  defy  Platt  and  all  his  imps,  and  be 
reelected. 

As  I  have  just  quoted  Secretary  Hay's  sarcastic 
remarks  on  the  possibility  that  Roosevelt  might  be 
the  candidate  for  Vice-President,  I  will  add  this 
extract  from  Hay's  note  to  the  successful  candidate 
himself,  dated  June  2ist: 

As  it  is  all  over  but  the  shouting,  I  take  a  moment  of  this 
cool  morning  of  the  longest  day  in  the  year  to  offer  you  my 
cordial  congratulations.  .  .  .  You  have  received  the  greatest 
compliment  the  country  could  pay  you,  and  although  it  was 
not  precisely  what  you  and  your  friends  desire,  I  have  no 
doubt  it  is  all  for  the  best.  Nothing  can  keep  you  from  doing 
good  work  wherever  you  are  —  nor  from  getting  lots  of  fun 
out  of  it.1 

The  Presidential  campaign  which  followed,  shook 
the  country  only  a  little  less  than  that  of  1896  had 
done.  For  William  J.  Bryan  was  again  the  Demo 
cratic  candidate,  honest  money  —  the  gold  against 
the  silver  standard  —  was  again  the  issue  —  al 
though  the  Spanish  War  had  injected  Imperialism 
into  the  Republican  platform  —  and  the  conserva 
tive  elements  were  still  anxious.  The  persistence  of 

1  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  n,  343. 


VICE-PRESIDENT  151 

the  Free  Silver  heresy  and  of  Bryan's  hold  on  the 
popular  imagination  alarmed  them ;  for  it  seemed  to 
contradict  the  hope  implied  in  Lincoln's  saying  that 
you  can't  fool  all  the  people  all  the  time.  Here  was 
a  demagogue,  who  had  been  exposed  and  beaten  four 
years  before,  who  raised  his  head  —  or  should  I  say 
his  voice?  —  with  increased  effrontery  and  to  an 
equally  large  and  enthusiastic  audience. 

Roosevelt  took  his  full  share  in  campaigning  for 
the  Republican  ticket.  He  spoke  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West,  and  for  the  first  time  the  people  of  many 
of  the  States  heard  him  speak  and  saw  his  actual 
presence.  His  attitude  as  a  speaker,  his  gestures,  the 
way  in  which  his  pent-up  thoughts  seemed  almost  to 
strangle  him  before  he  could  utter  them,  his  smile 
showing  the  white  rows  of  teeth,  his  fist  clenched  as 
if  to  strike  an  invisible  adversary,  the  sudden  drop 
ping  of  his  voice,  and  leveling  of  his  forefinger  as  he 
became  almost  conversational  in  tone,  and  seemed  to 
address  special  individuals  in  the  crowd  before  him, 
the  strokes  of  sarcasm,  stern  and  cutting,  and  the 
swift  flashes  of  humor  which  set  the  great  multitude 
in  a  roar,  became  in  that  summer  and  autumn  fa 
miliar  to  millions  of  his  countrymen;  and  the  car 
toonists  made  his  features  and  gestures  familiar  to 
many  other  millions.  On  his  Western  trip,  Roosevelt 
for  a  companion  and  understudy  had  Curtis  Guild, 


152  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  more  than  once  when  Roosevelt  lost  his  voice 
completely,  Guild  had  to  speak  for  him.  Up  to  elec 
tion  day  in  November,  the  Republicans  did  not  feel 
confident,  but  when  the  votes  were  counted,  McKin- 
ley  had  a  plurality  of  over  830,000,  and  beat  Bryan 
by  more  than  a  million. 

By  an  absurd  and  bungling  practice,  which  obtains 
in  our  political  life,  the  Administration  elected  in 
November  does  not  take  office  until  the  following 
March,  an  interval  which  permits  the  old  Adminis 
tration,  often  beaten  and  discredited,  to  continue  in 
office  for  four  months  after  the  people  have  turned  it 
out.  As  we  have  lately  seen,  such  an  Administration 
does  not  experience  a  death-bed  repentance,  but 
employs  the  moratorium  to  rivet  upon  the  country 
the  evil  policies  which  the  people  have  repudiated. 
This  interval  Roosevelt  spent  in  finishing  his  work 
as  Governor  of  New  York  State,  and  in  removing 
to  Washington.  Then  he  had  a  foretaste  of  the  life 
of  inactivity  to  which  the  Vice- Presidency  doomed 
him. 

After  being  sworn  in  on  March  4,  1901,  his  only 
stated  duty  was  to  preside  over  the  Senate,  but  as 
the  Senate  did  not  usually  sit  during  the  hot  weather, 
he  had  still  more  leisure  thrust  upon  him.  Of  course, 
he  could  write,  and  there  never  was  a  time,  even  at 
his  busiest,  when  he  had  not  a  book,  or  addresses, 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
IN  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 


VICE-PRESIDENT  153 

or  articles  on  the  stocks.  But  writing  alone  was  not 
now  sufficient  to  exercise  his  very  vigorous  faculties. 
Perhaps,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  may  have 
had  a  foreboding  of  what  ennui  meant.  He  consulted 
Justice  White,  now  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  whether  it  would  be  proper  for  him  to  enroll 
himself  as  a  student  in  the  Washington  Law  School. 
Justice  White  feared  that  this  might  be  regarded  as 
a  slight  to  the  dignity  of  the  Vice-Presidential  office, 
but  he  told  Roosevelt  what  law-books  to  read,  and 
offered  to  quiz  him  every  Saturday  evening.  Before 
autumn  came,  however,  when  they  could  carry  out 
their  plan,  a  tragic  event  altered  the  course  of  Roose 
velt's  career. 


D 


CHAPTER  IX 

PRESIDENT 

URING  the  summer  of  1901,  the  city  of 
Buffalo,  New  York,  held  a  Pan-American  Expo 
sition.  President  McKinley  visited  this  and,  while 
holding  a  public  reception  on  September  6,  he  was 
twice  shot  by  Leon  Czolgosz,  a  Polish  anarchist. 
When  the  news  reached  him,  Roosevelt  went  straight 
to  Buffalo,  to  attend  to  any  matters  which  the  Presi 
dent  might  suggest ;  but  as  the  surgeons  pronounced 
the  wounds  not  fatal  nor  even  dangerous,  Roosevelt 
left  with  a  light  heart,  and  joined  his  family  at 
Mount  Tahawrus  in  the  Adirondacks.  For  several 
days  cheerful  bulletins  came.  Then,  on  Friday  after 
noon  the  1 3th,  when  the  Vice- President  and  his  party 
were  coming  down  from  a  climb  to  the  top  of  Mount 
Marcy,  a  messenger  brought  a  telegram  which  read : 

The  President's  condition  has  changed  for  the  worse. 

CORTELYOU. 

The  climbers  on  Mount  Marcy  were  fifty  miles 
from  the  end  of  the  railroad  and  ten  miles  from  the 
nearest  telephone  at  the  lower  club-house.  They 
hurried  forward  on  foot,  following  the  trail  to  the 
nearest  cottage;  where  a  runner  arrived  with  a  mes- 


PRESIDENT  155 

sage,  "Come  at  once."  Further  messages  awaited 
them  at  the  lower  club-house.  President  McKinley 
was  dying,  and  Roosevelt  must  lose  no  time.  His 
secretary,  William  Loeb,  telephoned  from  North 
Creek,  the  end  of  the  railroad,  that  he  had  had  a 
locomotive  there  for  hours  with  full  steam  up.  So 
Roosevelt  and  the  driver  of  his  buckboard  dashed  on 
through  the  night,  over  the  uncertain  mountain 
road,  dangerous  even  by  daylight,  at  breakneck 
speed.  Dawn  was  breaking  when  they  came  to 
North  Creek.  There,  Loeb  told  him  that  President 
McKinley  was  dead.  Then  they  steamed  back  to 
civilization  as  fast  as  possible,  reached  the  main 
trunk  line,  and  sped  on  to  Buffalo  without  a  mo 
ment's  delay.  It  was  afternoon  when  the  special 
train  came  into  the  station,  and  Roosevelt,  having 
covered  the  distance  of  440  miles  from  Mount 
Marcy,  was  driven  to  the  house  of  Ansley  Wilcox. 
Most  of  the  Cabinet  had  preceded  him  to  Buffalo, 
and  Secretary  Root,  the  ranking  member  present  - 
Secretary  Hay  having  remained  in  Washington  - 
asked  the  Vice-President  to  be  sworn  in  at  once. 
Roosevelt  replied: 

I  shall  take  the  oath  of  office  in  obedience  to  your  request, 
sir,  and  in  doing  so,  it  shall  be  my  aim  to  continue  absolutely 
unbroken  the  policies  of  President  McKinley  for  the  peace, 
prosperity,  and  honor  of  our  beloved  country. 


156  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  oath  having  been  administered,  the  new  Presi 
dent  said: 

In  order  to  help  me  keep  the  promise  I  have  taken,  I  would 
ask  the  Cabinet  to  retain  their  positions  at  least  for  some 
months  to  come.  I  shall  rely  upon  you,  gentlemen,  upon  your 
loyalty  and  fidelity,  to  help  me.1 

On  September  19,  John  Hay  wrote  to  his  intimate 
friend,  Henry  Adams: 

I  have  just  received  your  letter  from  Stockholm  and  shud 
dered  at  the  awful  clairvoyance  of  your  last  phrase  about 
Teddy's  luck. 

Well,  he  is  here  in  the  saddle  again.  That  is,  he  is  in  Canton 
to  attend  President  McKinley's  funeral  and  will  have  his 
first  Cabinet  meeting  in  the  White  House  tomorrow.  He 
came  down  from  Buffalo  Monday  night  —  and  in  the  station, 
without  waiting  an  instant,  told  me  I  must  stay  with  him  — 
that  I  could  not  decline  nor  even  consider.  I  saw,  of  course, 
it  was  best  for  him  to  start  off  that  way,  and  so  I  said  I  would 
stay,  forever,  of  course,  for  it  would  be  worse  to  say  I  would 
stay  a  while  than  it  would  be  to  go  out  at  once.  I  can  still  go 
at  any  moment  he  gets  tired  of  me  or  when  I  collapse.2 

Writing  to  Lady  Jeune  at  this  time  Hay  said: 

I  think  you  know  Mr.  Roosevelt,  our  new  President.  He 
is  an  old  and  intimate  friend  of  mine:  a  young  fellow  of 
infinite  dash  and  originality. 

In  this  manner,  "Teddy's  luck"  brought  him  into 
the  White  House,  as  the  twenty-sixth  President  of 
the  United  States.  Early  in  the  summer,  his  old  col- 

1  Washburn,  40.  2  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  u,  268. 


PRESIDENT  157 

lege  friend  and  steadfast  admirer,  Charles  Wash- 
burn,  remarked:  "I  would  not  like  to  be  in  McKin- 
ley's  shoes.  He  has  a  man  of  destiny  behind  him." 
Destiny  is  the  one  artificer  who  can  use  all  tools  and 
who  finds  a  short  cut  to  his  goal  through  ways  mys 
terious  and  most  devious.  As  I  have  before  remarked, 
nothing  commonplace  could  happen  to  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  He  emerged  triumphant  from  the  receiv 
ing-vault  of  the  Vice-Presidency,  where  his  enemies 
supposed  they  had  laid  him  away  for  good.  In  ancient 
days,  his  midnight  dash  from  Mount  Marcy,  and  his 
flight  by  train  across  New  York  State  to  Buffalo, 
would  have  become  a  myth  symbolizing  the  response 
of  a  hero  to  an  Olympian  summons.  If  we  ponder  it 
well,  was  it  indeed  less  than  this? 

In  1899,  Mr.  James  Bryce,  the  most  penetrat 
ing  of  foreign  observers  of  American  life  had  said, 
in  words  that  now  seem  prophetic:  "Theodore 
Roosevelt  is  the  hope  of  American  politics." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  WORLD  WHICH  ROOSEVELT  CONFRONTED 

TO  understand  the  work  of  a  statesman  we 
must  know  something  of  the  world  in  which 
he  lived.  That  is  his  material,  out  of  which  he  tries 
to  embody  his  ideals  as  the  sculptor  carves  his  out 
of  marble.  We  are  constantly  under  the  illusions  of 
time.  Some  critics  say,  for  instance,  that  Washington 
fitted  so  perfectly  the  environment  of  the  American 
Colonies  during  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  that  he  was  the  direct  product  of  that  environ 
ment;  I  prefer  to  think,  however,  that  he  possessed 
certain  individual  traits  which,  and  not  the  time, 
made  him  George  Washington,  and  would  have  en 
abled  him  to  have  mastered  a  different  period  if  he 
had  been  born  in  it.  In  like  manner,  having  known 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  I  do  not  believe  that  he  would 
have  been  dumb  or  passive  or  colorless  or  slothful  or 
futile  under  any  other  conceivable  conditions.  Just 
as  it  was  not  New  York  City,  nor  Harvard,  nor 
North  Dakota,  which  made  him  Roosevelt,  so  the 
Roosevelt  in  him  would  have  persisted  under  what 
ever  sky. 

The  time  offers  the  opportunities.  The  gift  in  the 


WORLD  CONFRONTED  BY  ROOSEVELT     159 

man,  innate  and  incalculable,  determines  how  he  will 
seize  them  and  what  he  will  do  with  them.  Now  it  is 
because  I  think  that  Roosevelt  had  a  clear  vision  of 
the  world  in  which  he  dwelt,  and  saw  the  path  by 
which  to  lead  and  improve  it,  that  his  career  has 
profound  significance  to  me.  Picturesque  he  was, 
and  picturesqueness  made  whatever  he  did  interest 
ing.  But  far  deeper  qualities  made  him  significant. 

From  ancient  times,  at  least  from  the  days  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  Democracy  as  a  political  ideal 
had  been  dreamed  of,  and  had  even  been  put  into 
practice  on  a  small  scale  here  and  there.  But  its 
shortcomings  and  the  frailty  of  human  nature  made 
it  the  despair  of  practical  men  and  the  laughing 
stock  of  philosophers  and  ironists.  Nevertheless,  the 
conviction  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  enslave  an 
other  would  not  die.  And  in  modern  times  the  Eng 
lish  sense  of  justice  and  the  English  belief  that  a 
man  must  have  a  right  to  be  heard  on  matters  con 
cerning  himself  and  his  government,  forced  Democ 
racy,  as  an  actual  system,  to  the  front.  The  demand 
for  representation  caused  the  American  colonists  to 
break  away  from  England  and  to  govern  themselves 
independently.  Every  one  now  sees  that  this  demand 
was  the  just  and  logical  carrying  forward  of  English 
ideals. 

At  about  the  same  time,  in  France,  Rousseau, 


160  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

gathering  into  his  own  heart,  from  many  sources,  the 
suggestions  and  emotions  of  Democracy,  uttered 
them  with  a  voice  so  magical  that  it  roused  millions 
of  other  hearts  and  made  the  emotions  seem  intel 
lectual  proofs.  As  the  magician  waves  his  wand  and 
turns  common  pebbles  into  precious  stones,  so 
Rousseau  turned  the  dead  crater  of  Europe  into  a 
molten  volcano.  The  ideals  of  Fraternity  and  Equal 
ity  were  joined  with  that  of  Liberty  and  the  three 
were  accepted  as  indivisible  elements  of  Democracy. 
In  the  United  States  we  set  our  Democratic  prin 
ciples  going.  In  Europe  the  Revolution  shattered 
many  of  the  hateful  methods  of  Despotism,  shat 
tered,  but  did  not  destroy  them.  The  amazing  genius 
of  Napoleon  intervened  to  deflect  Europe  from  her 
march  towards  Democracy  and  to  convert  her  into 
the  servant  of  his  personal  ambition. 

Over  here,  in  spite  of  the  hideous  contradiction 
of  slavery,  which  ate  like  a  black  ulcer  into  a  part  of 
our  body  politic,  the  Democratic  ideal  not  only  pre 
vailed,  but  came  to  be  taken  for  granted  as  a  heaven- 
revealed  truth,  which  only  fools  would  question  or 
dispute.  In  Europe,  the  monarchs  of  the  Old  Regime 
made  a  desperate  rally  and  put  down  Napoleon, 
thinking  that  by  smashing  him  they  would  smash 
also  the  tremendous  Democratic  forces  by  which  he 
had  gained  his  supremacy.  They  put  back,  so  far  as 


WORLD  CONFRONTED  BY  ROOSEVELT     161 

they  could,  the  old  feudal  bases  of  privilege  and  of 
more  or  less  disguised  tyranny.  The  Restoration 
could  not  slumber  quietly,  for  the  forces  of  the 
Revolution  burst  out  from  time  to  time.  They  wished 
to  realize  the  liberty  of  which  they  had  had  a  glimpse 
in  1789  and  which  the  Old  Regime  had  snatched 
away  from  them.  The  Spirit  of  Nationality  now 
strengthened  their  efforts  for  independence  and  lib 
erty  and  another  Spirit  came  stalking  after  both. 
This  was  the  Social  Revolution,  which  refusing 
to  be  satisfied  by  a  merely  political  victory  boldly 
preached  Internationalism  as  a  higher  ideal  than 
Nationalism.  Truly,  Time  still  devours  all  his  chil 
dren,  and  the  hysterical  desires  bred  by  half-truths 
prevent  the  coming  and  triumphant  reign  of  Truth. 
While  these  various  and  mutually  clashing  motives 
swept  Europe  along  during  the  first  half  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  a  different  current  hurried  the 
United  States  into  the  rapids.  Should  they  continue 
to  exist  as  one  Union  binding  together  sections  with 
different  interests,  or  should  the  Union  be  dissolved 
and  those  sections  attempt  to  lead  a  separate  polit 
ical  existence?  Fortunately,  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  the  question  of  slavery  was  uppermost  in 
one  of  the  sections.  Slavery  could  not  be  dismissed 
as  a  merely  economic  question.  Many  Americans  de 
clared  that  it  was  primarily  a  moral  issue.  And  this 


162  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

transformed  what  the  Southern  section  would  gladly 
have  limited  to  economics  into  a  war  for  a  moral 
ideal.  With  the  destruction  of  slavery  in  the  South 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  came  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

The  Civil  War  itself  had  given  a  great  stimulus  to 
industry,  to  the  need  of  providing  military  equip 
ment  and  supplies,  and  of  extending,  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  the  railroads  which  were  the  chief  means 
of  transportation.  When  the  war  ended  in  1865,  this 
expansion  went  on  at  an  increasing  rate.  The  energy 
which  had  been  devoted  to  military  purposes  was 
now  directed  to  commerce  and  industry,  to  develop 
ing  the  vast  unpeopled  tracts  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Pacific,  and  to  exploiting  the  hitherto  neglected 
or  unknown  natural  resources  of  the  country.  Every 
year  science  furnished  new  methods  of  converting 
nature's  products  into  man's  wealth.  Chemistry,  the 
doubtful  science,  Midas-like,  turned  into  gold  every 
thing  that  it  touched.  There  were  not  native  workers 
enough,  and  so  a  steady  stream  of  foreign  immi 
grants  flocked  over  from  abroad.  They  came  at 
first  to  better  their  own  fortunes  by  sharing  in  the 
unlimited  American  harvests.  Later,  our  Captains 
of  Industry,  regardless  of  the  quality  of  the  new 
comers,  and  intent  only  on  securing  cheap  labor  to 
multiply  their  hoards,  combed  the  lowest  political 


WORLD  CONFRONTED  BY  ROOSEVELT     163 

and  social  levels  of  southern  Europe  and  of  western 
Asia  for  employees.  The  immigrants  ceased  to  look 
upon  America  as  the  Land  of  Promise,  the  land  where 
they  intended  to  settle,  to  make  their  homes,  and  to 
rear  their  children ;  it  became  for  them  only  a  huge 
factory  where  they  earned  a  living  and  for  which 
they  felt  no  affection.  On  the  contrary,  many  of  them 
looked  forward  to  returning  to  their  native  country 
as  soon  as  they  had  saved  up  a  little  competence 
here.  The  politicians,  equally  negligent  of  the  real 
welfare  of  the  United  States,  gave  to  these  masses 
of  foreigners  quick  and  unscrutinized  naturalization 
as  American  citizens. 

So  it  fell  out  that  before  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  a  great  gulf  was  opening  between  Labor  and 
Capital.  Now  a  community  can  thrive  only  when  all 
its  classes  feel  that  they  have  common  interests;  but 
since  American  Labor  was  largely  composed  of  for 
eigners,  it  acquired  a  double  antagonism  to  Capital. 
It  had  not  only  the  supposed  natural  antagonism  of 
employee  to  employer,  but  also  the  further  cause  of 
misunderstanding,  and  hostility  even,  which  came 
from  the  foreignness  of  its  members.  Another  omi 
nous  condition  arose.  The  United  States  ceased  to  be 
the  Land  of  Promise,  where  any  hard-working  and 
thrifty  man  could  better  himself  and  even  become 
rich.  The  gates  of  Opportunity  were  closing.  The 


1 64  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

free  lands,  which  the  Nation  offered  to  any  one  who 
would  cultivate  them,  had  mostly  been  taken  up ;  the 
immigrant  who  had  been  a  laborer  in  Europe,  was  a 
laborer  here.  Moreover,  the  political  conditions  in 
Europe  often  added  to  the  burdens  and  irritation 
caused  by  the  industrial  conditions  there.  And  the 
immigrant  in  coming  to  America  brought  with  him 
all  his  grievances,  political  not  less  than  industrial. 
He  was  too  ignorant  to  discriminate;  he  could  only 
feel.  Anarchy  and  Nihilism,  which  were  his  natural 
reaction  against  his  despotic  oppressors  in  Germany 
and  Russia,  he  went  on  cultivating  here,  where,  by 
the  simple  process  of  naturalization,  he  became  po 
litically  his  own  despot  in  a  year  or  two. 

But,  of  course,  the  very  core  of  the  feud  which 
threatens  to  disrupt  modern  civilization  was  the  dis 
covery  that,  in  any  final  adjustment,  the  political 
did  not  suffice.  What  availed  it  for  the  laborer  and 
the  capitalist  to  be  equal  at  the  polls,  for  the  vote  of 
one  to  count  as  much  as  the  vote  of  the  other,  if  the 
two  men  were  actually  worlds  apart  in  their  social 
and  industrial  lives?  Equality  must  seem  to  the 
laborer  a  cruel  deception  and  a  sham  unless  it  results 
in  equality  in  the  distribution  of  wealth  and  of  oppor 
tunity.  How  this  is  to  be  attained  I  have  never  seen 
satisfactorily  stated ;  but  the  impossibility  of  realiz 
ing  their  dreams,  or  the  blank  folly  of  doting  on 


WORLD  CONFRONTED  BY  ROOSEVELT     165 

them,  has  never  prevented  men  from  striving  to 
obtain  them.  From  this  has  resulted  the  frantic  pur 
suit,  during  a  century  and  a  quarter,  of  all  sorts  of 
projects  from  Babuvism  to  Bolshevism,  which,  if 
they  could  not  install  Utopia  overnight,  were  at 
least  calculated  to  destroy  Civilization  as  it  is.  The 
common  feature  of  the  propagandists  of  all  these 
doctrines  seems  to  be  the  thro  wing-over  of  the  Past ; 
not  merely  of  the  proved  evils  and  inadequacies  of 
the  Past,  but  of  our  conception  of  right  and  wrong, 
of  morals,  of  human  relations,  and  of  our  duty 
towards  the  Eternal,  which,  having  sprung  out  of 
the  Past,  must  be  jettisoned  in  a  fury  of  contempt. 
In  short,  the  destroyers  of  Society  (writhing  under 
the  immemorial  sting  of  injustice,  which  they  be 
lieved  was  wholly  caused  by  their  privileged  fellows, 
and  not  even  in  part  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things) 
supposed  that  by  blotting  out  Privilege  they  could 
establish  their  ideals  of  Justice  and  Equality. 

In  the  forward  nations  of  Europe,  not  less  than  in 
the  United  States,  these  ideals  had  been  arrived  at, 
at  least  in  name,  and  so  far  as  concerned  politics. 
Even  in  Germany,  the  most  rigid  of  Absolute  Despot 
isms,  a  phantasm  of  political  liberty  was  allowed  to 
flit  about  the  Halls  of  Parliament.  But  through  the 
cunning  of  Bismarck  the  Socialist  masses  were  bound 
all  the  more  tightly  to  the  Hohenzollern  Despot  by 


1 66  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

liens  which  seemed  to  be  socialistic.  Nevertheless, 
the  principles  of  the  Social  Revolution  spread  secretly 
from  European  country  to  country,  whether  it  pro 
fessed  to  be  Monarchical  or  Republican. 

In  the  United  States,  when  Theodore  Roosevelt 
succeeded  to  the  Presidency  in  1901,  a  similar  an 
tagonism  between  Capital  and  Labor  had  become 
chronic.  Capital  was  arrogant.  Its  advance  since  the 
Civil  War  had  been  unmatched  in  history.  The  in 
undation  of  wealth  which  had  poured  in,  compared 
with  all  previous  amassing  of  riches,  was  as  the 
Mississippi  to  the  slender  stream  of  Pactolus.  The 
men  whose  energy  had  created  this  wealth,  and  the 
men  who  managed  and  increased  it,  lost  the  sense  of 
their  proper  relations  with  the  rest  of  the  community 
and  the  Nation.  According  to  the  current  opinion 
progress  consisted  in  doubling  wealth  in  the  shortest 
time  possible;  this  meant  the  employment  of  larger 
and  larger  masses  of  labor ;  therefore  laborers  should 
be  satisfied,  nay,  should  be  grateful  to  the  capitalists 
who  provided  them  with  the  means  of  a  livelihood; 
and  those  capitalists  assumed  that  what  they  re 
garded  as  necessary  to  progress,  defined  by  them, 
should  be  accepted  as  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  Nation. 

Such  an  alignment  of  the  two  elements,  which  com 
posed  the  Nation,  indicated  how  far  the  so-called 


WORLD  CONFRONTED  BY  ROOSEVELT     167 

Civilization,  which  modern  industrialism  has  created, 
was  from  achieving  that  social  harmony,  which  is  the 
ideal  and  must  be  the  base  of  every  wholesome  and 
enduring  State.  The  condition  of  the  working  classes 
in  this  country  was  undoubtedly  better  than  that  in 
Europe.  And  the  discontent  and  occasional  violence 
here  were  fomented  by  foreign  agitators  who  tried  to 
make  our  workers  believe  that  they  were  as  much  op 
pressed  as  their  foreign  brothers.  Wise  observers  saw 
that  a  collision,  it  might  be  a  catastrophe,  was  bound 
to  come  unless  some  means  could  be  found  to  bring 
concord  to  the  antagonists.  Here  was  surely  an 
amazing  paradox.  The  United  States,  already  pos 
sessed  of  fabulous  wealth  and  daily  amassing  more, 
was  heading  straight  for  a  social  and  economic  revo 
lution,  because  a  part  of  the  inhabitants  claimed  to 
be  the  slaves  of  industrialism  and  of  poverty. 

This  slight  outline,  which  every  reader  can  com 
plete  for  himself,  will  serve  to  show  what  sort  of  a 
world,  especially  what  sort  of  an  American  world, 
confronted  Roosevelt  when  he  took  the  reins  of 
government.  His  task  was  stupendous,  the  problems 
he  had  to  solve  were  baffling.  Other  public  men  of  the 
time  saw  its  portents,  but  he  alone  seems  to  have 
felt  that  it  was  his  duty  to  strain  every  nerve  to 
avert  the  impending  disaster.  And  he  alone,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  understood  the  best  means  to  take. 


1 68  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Honesty,  Justice,  Reason,  were  not  to  him  mere 
words  to  decorate  sonorous  messages  or  to  catch 
and  placate  the  hearers  of  his  passionate  speeches; 
they  were  the  most  real  of  all  realities,  moral  agents 
to  be  used  to  clear  away  the  deadlock  into  which 
Civilization  was  settling. 


I 


CHAPTER  XI 
ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY 

N  taking  the  oath  of  office  at  Buffalo,  Roose 
velt  promised  to  continue  President  McKin- 
ley's  policies.  And  this  he  set  about  doing  loyally.  He 
retained  McKinley's  Cabinet,1  who  were  working 
out  the  adjustments  already  agreed  upon.  McKin- 
ley  was  probably  the  best-natured  President  who 
ever  occupied  the  White  House.  He  instinctively 
shrank  from  hurting  anybody's  feelings.  Persons  who 
went  to  see  him  in  dudgeon,  to  complain  against 
some  act  which  displeased  them,  found  him  "  a  bower 
of  roses/'  too  sweet  and  soft  to  be  treated  harshly. 
He  could  say  "  no  "  to  applicants  for  office  so  gently 
that  they  felt  no  resentment.  For  twenty  years  he  had 
advocated  a  protective  tariff  so  mellifluously,  and  he 
believed  so  sincerely  in  its  efficacy,  that  he  could  at 
any  time  hypnotize  himself  by  repeating  his  own 
phrases.  If  he  had  ever  studied  the  economic  subject, 
it  was  long  ago,  and  having  adopted  the  tenets  which 
an  Ohio  Republican  could  hardly  escape  from  adopt 
ing,  he  never  revised  them  or  even  questioned  their 

1  A  few  months  later  J.  W.  Griggs  retired  as  Attorney-General  and 
was  succeeded  by  P.  C.  Knox,  and  C.  E.  Smith  was  replaced  by  H.  W. 
Payne  as  Postmaster-General. 


170  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

validity.  His  protectionism,  like  cheese,  only  grew 
stronger  with  age.  As  a  politician,  he  was  so  hospita 
ble  that  in  the  campaign  of  1896,  which  was  fought 
to  maintain  the  gold  standard  and  the  financial  hon 
esty  of  the  United  States,  he  showed  very  plainly 
that  he  had  no  prejudice  against  free  silver,  and  it 
was  only  at  the  last  moment  that  the  Republican 
managers  could  persuade  him  to  take  a  firm  stand 
for  gold. 

The  chief  business  which  McKinley  left  behind 
him,  the  work  which  Roosevelt  took  up  and  carried 
on,  concerned  Imperialism.  The  Spanish  War  forced 
this  subject  to  the  front  by  leaving  us  in  possession 
of  the  Philippines  and  by  bequeathing  to  us  the  re 
sponsibility  for  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico.  We  paid  Spain 
for  the  Philippines,  and  in  spite  of  constitutional 
doubts  as  to  how  a  Republic  like  the  United  States 
could  buy  or  hold  subject  peoples,  we  proceeded  to 
conquer  those  islands  and  to  set  up  an  American 
administration  in  them.  We  also  treated  Porto  Rico 
as  a  colony,  to  enjoy  the  blessing  of  our  rule.  And 
while  we  allowed  Cuba  to  set  up  a  Republic  of  her 
own,  we  made  it  very  clear  that  our  benevolent  pro 
tection  was  behind  her. 

All  this  constituted  Imperialism,  against  which 
many  of  our  soberest  citizens  protested.  They  alleged 
that  as  a  doctrine  it  contradicted  the  fundamental 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        171 

principles  on  which  our  nation  was  built.  Since  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  America  had  stood 
before  the  world  as  the  champion  and  example  of 
Liberty,  and  by  our  Civil  War  she  had  purged  her 
self  of  Slavery.  Imperialism  made  her  the  mistress  of 
peoples  who  had  never  been  consulted.  Such  moral 
inconsistency  ought  not  to  be  tolerated.  In  addition 
to  it  was  the  political  danger  that  lay  in  holding 
possessions  on  the  other  side  of  the  Pacific.  To  keep 
them  we  must  be  prepared  to  defend  them,  and  de 
fense  would  involve  maintaining  a  naval  and  mili 
tary  armament  and  of  stimulating  a  warlike  spirit, 
repugnant  to  our  traditions.  In  short,  Imperialism 
made  the  United  States  a  World  Power,  and  laid  her 
open  to  its  perils  and  entanglements. 

But  while  a  minority  of  the  men  and  women  of 
sober  judgment  and  conscience  opposed  Imperialism, 
the  large  majority  accepted  it,  and  among  these  was 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  believed  that  the  recent 
war  had  involved  us  in  a  responsibility  which  we 
could  not  evade  if  we  would.  Having  destroyed  Span 
ish  sovereignty  in  the  Philippines,  we  must  see  to  it 
that  the  people  of  those  islands  were  protected.  We  \ 

1 

could  not  leave  them  to  govern  themselves  because 

«^x 

they  had  no  experience  in  government;  nor  could  we    • 
dodge  our  obligation  by  selling  them  to  any  other 
Power.  Far  from  hesitating  because  of  legal  or  moral 


172  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

doubts,  much  less  of  questioning  our  ability  to  per 
form  this  new  task,  Roosevelt  embraced  Imperialism, 
with  all  its  possible  issues,  boldly  not  to  say  exult 
antly.  To  him  Imperialism  meant  national  strength, 
the  acknowledgment  by  the  American  people  that 
the  United  States  are  a  World  Power  and  that  they 
would  not  shrink  from  taking  up  any  burden  which 
that  distinction  involved. 

When  President  Cleveland,  at  the  end  of  1895, 
sent  his  swingeing  message  in  regard  to  the  Vene 
zuelan  Boundary  quarrel,  Roosevelt  was  one  of  the 
first  to  foresee  the  remote  consequences.  And  by  the 
time  he  himself  became  President,  less  than  six 
years  later,  several  events  —  our  taking  of  the  Ha 
waiian  Islands,  the  Spanish  War,  the  island  posses 
sions  which  it  saddled  upon  us  —  confirmed  his  con 
viction  that  the  United  States  could  no  longer  live 
isolated  from  the  great  interests  and  policies  of  the 
world,  but  must  take  their  place  among  the  ruling 
Powers.  Having  reached  national  maturity  we  must 
accept  Expansion  as  the  logical  and  normal  ideal 
for  our  matured  nation.  Cleveland  had  laid  down 
that  the  Monroe  Doctrine. was  inviolable;  Roosevelt 
insisted  that  we  must  not  only  bow  to  it  in  theory, 
but  be  prepared  to  defend  it  if  necessary  by  force  of 
arms. 

Very  naturally,  therefore,  Roosevelt  encouraged 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY         173 

the  passing  of  legislation  needed  to  complete  the 
settlement  of  our  relations  with  our  new  possessions. 
He  paid  especial  attention  to  the  men  he  sent  to 
administer  the  Philippines,  and  later  he  was  able 
to  secure  the  services  of  W.  Cameron  Forbes  as  Gov 
ernor-General.  Mr.  Forbes  proved  to  be  a  Viceroy 
after  the  best  British  model  and  he  looked  after  the 
interest  of  his  wards  so  honestly  and  competently 
that  conditions  in  the  Philippines  improved  rapidly, 
and  the  American  public  in  general  felt  no  qualms 
over  possessing  them.  But  the  Anti-Imperialists,  to 
whom  a  moral  issue  does  not  cease  to  be  moral  sim 
ply  because  it  has  a  material  sugar-coating,  kept  up 
their  protest. 

There  were,  however,  matters  of  internal  policy; 
along  with  them  Roosevelt  inherited  several  foreign 
complications  which  he  at  once  grappled  with.  In  the 
Secretary  of  State,  John  Hay,  he  had  a  remarkable 
helper.  Henry  Adams  told  me  that  Hay  was  the  first 
"man  of  the  world"  who  had  ever  been  Secretary  of 
State.  While  this  may  be  disputed,  nobody  can  fail 
to  see  some  truth  in  Adams's  assertion.  Hay  had  not 
only  the  manners  of  a  gentleman,  but  also  the  special 
carriage  of  a  diplomat.  He  was  polite,  affable,  and 
usually  accessible,  without  ever  losing  his  innate  dig 
nity.  An  indefinable  reserve  warded  off  those  who 
would  either  presume  or  indulge  in  undue  familiarity. 


174  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

His  quick  wits  kept  him  always  on  his  guard.  His 
main  defect  was  his  unwillingness  to  regard  the  Sen 
ate  as  having  a  right  to  pass  judgment  on  his  treaties. 
And  instead  of  being  compliant  and  compromising, 
he  injured  his  cause  with  the  Senators  by  letting 
them  see  too  plainly  that  he  regarded  them  as  inter 
lopers,  and  by  peppering  them  with  witty  but  not 
agreeable  sarcasm.  In  dealing  with  foreign  diplomats, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  was  at  his  best.  They  found 
him  polished,  straightforward,  and  urbane.  He  not 
only  produced  on  them  the  impression  of  honesty, 
but  he  was  honest.  In  all  his  diplomatic  correspon 
dence,  whether  he  was  writing  confidentially  to  Amer 
ican  representatives  or  was  addressing  official  notes 
to  foreign  governments,  I  do  not  recall  a  single  hint 
of  double-dealing.  Hay  was  the  velvet  glove,  Roose 
velt  the  hand  of  steel. 

For  many  years  Canada  and  the  United  States  had 
enjoyed  grievances  towards  each  other,  grievances 
over  fisheries,  over  lumber,  and  other  things,  no  one 
of  which  was  worth  going  to  war  for.  The  discovery 
of  gold  in  the  Klondike,  and  the  rush  thither  of  thou 
sands  of  fortune-seekers,  revived  the  old  question  of 
the  Alaskan  Boundary ;  for  it  mattered  a  great  deal 
whether  some  of  the  gold-fields  were  Alaskan  —  that 
is,  American  —  or  Canadian.  Accordingly,  a  joint 
High  Commission  was  appointed  towards  the  end 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        175 

of  McKinley's  first  administration  to  consider  the 
claims  and  complaints  of  the  two  countries.  The  Ca 
nadians,  however,  instead  of  settling  each  point  on  its 
own  merits,  persisted  in  bringing  in  a  list  of  twelve 
grievances  which  varied  greatly  in  importance,  and 
this  method  favored  trading  one  claim  against  an 
other.  The  result  was  that  the  Commission,  failing 
to  agree,  disbanded.  Nevertheless,  the  irritation 
continued,  and  Roosevelt,  having  become  President, 
and  being  a  person  who  was  constitutionally  op 
posed  to  shilly-shally,  suggested  to  the  State  De 
partment  that  a  new  Commission  be  appointed 
under  conditions  which  would  make  a  decision  cer 
tain.  He  even  went  farther,  he  took  precautions  to 
assure  a  verdict  in  favor  of  the  United  States.  He 
appointed  three  Commissioners  —  Senators  Lodge, 
Root,  and  Turner;  the  Canadians  appointed  two, 
Sir  A.  L.  Jette  and  A.  B.  Aylesworth;  the  Eng 
lish  representative  was  Alverstone,  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice. 

The  President  gave  to  Justice  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  who  was  going 
abroad  for  the  summer,  a  letter  which  he  was  "in 
discreetly"  to  show  Mr.  Chamberlain,  Mr.  Balfour, 
and  two  or  three  other  prominent  Englishmen.  In 
this  letter  he  wrote: 


176  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  claims  of  the  Canadians  for  access  to  deep  water  along 
any  part  of  the  Alaskan  Coast  is  just  exactly  as  indefensible 
as  if  they  should  now  suddenly  claim  the  Island  of  Nan- 
tucket.  .  .  . 

I  believe  that  no  three  men  [the  President  said]  in  the 
United  States  could  be  found  who  would  be  more  anxious 
than  our  own  delegates  to  do  justice  to  the  British  claim  on 
all  points  where  there  is  even  a  color  of  right  on  the  British 
side.  But  the  objection  raised  by  certain  Canadian  authorities 
to  Lodge,  Root,  and  Turner,  and  especially  to  Lodge  and 
Root,  was  that  they  had  committed  themselves  on  the  gen 
eral  proposition.  No  man  in  public  life  in  any  position  of  prom 
inence  could  have  possibly  avoided  committing  himself  on 
the  proposition,  any  more  than  Mr.  Chamberlain  could  avoid 
committing  himself  on  the  question  of  the  ownership  of  the 
Orkneys  if  some  Scandinavian  country  suddenly  claimed 
them.  If  this  claim  embodied  other  points  as  to  which  there 
was  legitimate  doubt,  I  believe  Mr.  Chamberlain  would  act 
fairly  and  squarely  in  deciding  the  matter ;  but  if  he  appointed 
a  commission  to  settle  up  all  these  questions,  I  certainly 
should  not  expect  him  to  appoint  three  men,  if  he  could  find 
them,  who  believed  that  as  to  the  Orkneys  the  question  was 
an  open  one. 

I  wish  to  make  one  last  effort  to  bring  about  an  agreement 
through  the  Commission  [he  said  in  closing]  which  will  enable 
the  people  of  both  countries  to  say  that  the  result  represents 
the  feeling  of  the  representatives  of  both  countries.  But  if 
there  is  a  disagreement,  I  wish  it  distinctly  understood,  not 
only  that  there  will  be  no  arbitration  of  the  matter,  but  that 
in  my  message  to  Congress  I  shall  take  a  position  which  will 
prevent  any  possibility  of  arbitration  hereafter ;  a  position  .  .  . 
which  will  render  it  necessary  for  Congress  to  give  me  the 
authority  to  run  the  line  as  we  claim  it,  by  our  own  people, 
without  any  further  regard  to  the  attitude  of  England  and 
Canada.  If  I  paid  attention  to  mere  abstract  rights,  that  is 
the  position  I  ought  to  take  anyhow.  I  have  not  taken  it  be- 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY         177 

cause  I  wish  to  exhaust  every  effort  to  have  the  affair  settled 
peacefully  and  with  due  regard  to  England's  honor.1 

In  due  time  the  Commission  gave  a  decision  in 
favor  of  the  American  contention.  Lord  Alverstone, 
who  voted  with  the  Americans,  was  suspected  of  hav 
ing  been  chosen  by  the  British  Government  because 
they  knew  his  opinion,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  this 
was  true.  A  man  of  his  honor,  sitting  in  such  a  tribu 
nal,  would  not  have  voted  according  to  instructions 
from  anybody. 

Roosevelt's  brusque  way  of  bringing  the  Alaska 
Boundary  Question  to  a  quick  decision,  may  be  crit 
icised  as  not  being  judicial.  He  took  the  short  cut, 
just  as  he  did  years  before  in  securing  a  witness 
against  the  New  York  saloon-keepers  who  destroyed 
the  lives  of  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  by  making 
them  drunkards.  Strictly,  of  course,  if  the  boundary 
dispute  was  to  be  submitted  to  a  commission,  he 
ought  to  have  allowed  the  other  party  to  appoint  its 
own  commissioners  without  any  suggestion  from 
him.  But  as  the  case  had  dragged  on  interminably, 
and  he  believed,  and  the  world  believed,  and  the 
Canadians  themselves  knew,  that  they  intended  to 
filibuster  and  postpone  as  long  as  possible,  he  took 
the  common-sense  way  to  a  settlement.  If  he  had  re 
solved,  as  he  had,  to  draw  the  boundary  line  "on 

1  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  n,  209,  210. 


178  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

his  own  hook,"  in  case  there  was  further  pettifogging 
he  committed  no  impropriety  in  warning  the  British 
statesmen  of  his  purpose.  In  judging  these  Roose- 
veltian  short  cuts,  the  reader  must  decide  whether 
they  were  justified  by  the  good  which  they  achieved. 
Of  even  greater  importance  was  the  understand 
ing  reached,  under  Roosevelt's  direction,  with  the 
British  Government  in  regard  to  the  construction  of 
a  canal  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  By  the  Clay- 
ton-Bulwer  Treaty  of  1850,  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  agreed  to  maintain  free  and  uninter 
rupted  passage  across  the  Isthmus,  and,  further,  that 
neither  country  should  "obtain  or  maintain  to  itself 
any  control  over  the  said  ship-canal/'  or  "assume 
or  exercise  any  dominion  .  .  .  over  any  part  of  Cen 
tral  America."  The  ship-canal  talked  about  as  a  prob 
ability  in  1850  had  become  a  necessity  by  1900. 
During  the  Spanish-American  War,  the  American 
battleship  Oregon  had  been  obliged  to  make  the  voy 
age  round  Cape  Horn,  from  San  Francisco  to  Cuba, 
and  this  served  to  impress  on  the  people  of  the  United 
States  the  really  acute  need  of  a  canal  across  the 
Isthmus,  so  that  in  time  of  war  with  a  powerful 
enemy,  our  Atlantic  fleet  and  our  Pacific  fleet  might 
quickly  pass  from  one  coast  to  another.  It  would 
obviously  be  impossible  for  us  to  play  the  r&le  of  a 
World  Power  unless  we  had  this  short  line  of  com- 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        179 

munication.  But  the  conditions  of  peace,  not  less 
than  the  emergencies  of  war,  called  for  a  canal.  In 
ternational  commerce,  as  well  as  our  own,  required 
the  saving  of  thousands  of  miles  of  distance. 

About  1880,  the  French  under  Count  De  Lesseps 
undertook  to  construct  a  canal  from  Panama  to  As- 
pinwall,  but  after  half  a  dozen  years  the  French  com 
pany  suspended  work,  partly  for  financial  reasons, 
and  partly  on  account  of  the  enormous  loss  of  life 
among  the  diggers  from  the  pestilent  nature  of  the 
climate  and  the  country.  Then  followed  a  period  of 
waiting,  until  it  seemed  certain  that  the  French  would 
never  resume  operations.  American  promoters  pressed 
the  claims  of  a  route  through  Nicaragua  where  they 
could  secure  concessions.  But  it  became  clear  that  an 
enterprise  of  such  far-reaching  political  importance  as 
a  trans- Isthmian  canal,  should  be  under  governmen 
tal  control.  John  Hay  had  been  less  than  a  year  in  the 
Department  of  State  when  he  set  about  negotiating 
with  England  a  treaty  which  should  embody  his 
ideas.  In  Sir  Julian  Pauncefote,  the  British  Ambas 
sador  at  Washington,  he  had  a  most  congenial  man 
to  deal  with.  Both  were  gentlemen,  both  were  firmly 
convinced  that  a  canal  must  be  constructed  for  the 
good  of  civilization,  both  held  that  to  assure  the 
friendship  of  the  two  great  branches  of  the  English- 
speaking  race  should  be  the  transcendent  aim  of  each. 


i8o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

They  soon  made  a  draft  of  a  treaty  which  was  sub 
mitted  to  the  Senate,  but  the  Senators  so  amended 
it  that  the  British  Government  refused  to  accept 
their  amendments,  and  the  project  failed.  Hay  was 
so  terribly  chagrined  at  the  Senate's  interference 
that  he  wished  to  resign.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
now,  however,  that  if  the  canal  had  been  undertaken 
on  the  terms  of  his  first  treaty,  it  would  never  have 
satisfied  the  United  States  and  it  would  probably 
have  been  a  continual  source  of  international  irrita 
tion.  Roosevelt  was  at  that  time  Governor  of  New 
York,  and  I  quote  the  following  letter  from  him  to 
Hay  because  it  shows  how  clearly  he  saw  the  ob 
jections  to  the  treaty,  and  the  fundamental  princi 
ples  for  the  control  of  an  Isthmian  canal: 

Albany,  Feb.  18,  1900 

I  hesitated  long  before  I  said  anything  about  the  treaty 
through  sheer  dread  of  two  moments  —  that  in  which  I  should 
receive  your  note,  and  that  in  which  I  should  receive  Cabot's.1 
But  I  made  up  my  mind  that  at  least  I  wished  to  be  on 
record;  for  to  my  mind  this  step  is  one  backward,  and  it  may 
be  fraught  with  very  great  mischief.  You  have  been  the 
greatest  Secretary  of  State  I  have  seen  in  my  time  —  Olney 
comes  second  —  but  at  this  moment  I  can  not,  try  as  I  may, 
see  that  you  are  right.  Understand  me.  When  the  treaty  is 
adopted,  as  I  suppose  it  will  be,  I  shall  put  the  best  face  pos 
sible  on  it,  and  shall  back  the  Administration  as  heartily  as 
ever,  but  oh,  how  I  wish  you  and  the  President  would  drop 
the  treaty  and  push  through  a  bill  to  build  and  fortify  our  own 
canal. 

1  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  who  also  opposed  the  first  treaty. 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        181 

My  objections  are  twofold.  First,  as  to  naval  policy.  If  the 
proposed  canal  had  been  in  existence  in  '98,  the  Oregon  could 
have  come  more  quickly  through  to  the  Atlantic;  but  this 
fact  would  have  been  far  outweighed  by  the  fact  that  Cer- 
vera's  fleet  would  have  had  open  to  it  the  chance  of  itself 
going  through  the  canal,  and  thence  sailing  to  attack  Dewey 
or  to  menace  our  stripped  Pacific  Coast.  If  that  canal  is  open 
to  the  warships  of  an  enemy,  it  is  a  menace  to  us  in  time  of 
war;  it  is  an  added  burden,  an  additional  strategic  point  to  be 
guarded  by  our  fleet.  If  fortified  by  us,  it  becomes  one  of  the 
most  potent  sources  of  our  possible  sea  strength.  Unless  so 
fortified  it  strengthens  against  us  every  nation  whose  fleet  is 
larger  than  our  own.  One  prime  reason  for  fortifying  our 
great  seaports,  is  to  unfetter  our  fleet,  to  release  it  for  offen 
sive  purposes;  and  the  proposed  canal  would  fetter  it  again, 
for  our  fleet  would  have  to  watch  it,  and  therefore  do  the  work 
which  a  fort  should  do;  and  what  it  could  do  much  better. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  If  we  invite  foreign 
powers  to  a  joint  ownership,  a  joint  guarantee,  of  what  so 
vitally  concerns  us  but  a  little  way  from  our  borders,  how  can 
we  possibly  object  to  similar  joint  action,  say  in  Southern 
Brazil  or  Argentina,  where  our  interests  are  so  much  less 
evident?  If  Germany  has  the  same  right  that  we  have  in  the 
canal  across  Central  America,  why  not  in  the  partition  of 
any  part  of  Southern  America?  To  my  mind,  we  should  con 
sistently  refuse  to  all  European  powers  the  right  to  control  in 
any  shape,  any  territory  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  which 
they  do  not  already  hold. 

As  for  existing  treaties  —  I  do  not  admit  the  "dead  hand  " 
of  the  treaty-making  power  in  the  past.  A  treaty  can  always 
be  honorably  abrogated  —  though  it  must  never  be  abrogated 
in  dishonest  fashion.1 

Fortunately,  Lord  Salisbury,  the  British  Prime 
Minister,  remained  benevolently  disposed  towards 

1  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  n,  339-41. 


1 82  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  Isthmian  Canal,  and  in  the  following  year  he 
consented  to  take  up  the  subject  again.  A  new  treaty 
embodying  the  American  amendments  and  the  Brit 
ish  objections  was  drafted,  and  passed  the  Senate  a 
few  months  after  Roosevelt  became  President.  Its 
vital  provisions  were,  that  it  abrogated  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  Treaty  and  gave  to  the  United  States  full 
ownership  and  control  of  the  proposed  canal. 

This  was  the  second  illustration  of  Roosevelt's 
masterfulness  in  cutting  through  a  diplomatic  knot. 
Arrangements  for  constructing  the  Canal  itself  forced 
on  him  a  third  display  of  his  dynamic  quality  which 
resulted  in  the  most  hotly  discussed  act  of  his  career. 

The  French  Canal  Company  was  glad  to  sell  to 
the  American  Government  its  concessions  on  the 
Isthmus,  and  as  much  of  the  Canal  as  it  had  dug,  for 
$40,000,000.  It  had  originally  bought  its  concession 
from  the  Government  of  Colombia,  which  owned  the 
State  of  Panama.  At  first  the  Colombian  rulers 
seemed  glad,  and  they  sent  an  accredited  agent,  Dr. 
Herran,  to  Washington,  who  framed  with  Secretary 
Hay  a  treaty  satisfactory  to  both,  and  believed,  by 
Mr.  Hay,  to  represent  the  sincere  intentions  of  the 
Colombian  Government  at  Bogota.  The  Colombian 
politicians,  however,  who  were  banditti  of  the  Tam 
many  stripe,  but  as  much  cruder  as  Bogota  was  than 
New  York  City,  suddenly  discovered  that  the  trans- 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY         183 

action  might  be  much  more  profitable  for  themselves 
than  they  had  at  first  suspected.  They  put  off  rati 
fying  the  treaty,  therefore,  and  warned  the  French 
Company  that  they  should  charge  it  an  additional 
$10,000,000  for  the  privilege  of  transferring  its  con 
cession  to  the  Americans.  The  French  demurred ;  the 
Americans  waited.  Secretary  Hay  reminded  Dr. 
Herran  that  the  treaty  must  be  signed  within  a  rea 
sonable  time,  and  intimated  that  the  reasonable 
time  would  soon  be  up. 

The  Bogotan  blackmailers  indulged  in  still  wilder 
dreams  of  avarice;  like  the  hasheesh-eater,  they  com 
pletely  lost  contact  with  reality  and  truth.  In  one  of 
their  earlier  compacts  with  the  French  Company 
they  stipulated  that,  if  the  Canal  were  not  completed 
by  a  certain  day  in  1904,  the  entire  concession  and 
undertaking  should  revert  to  the  Colombian  Gov 
ernment.  As  it  was  now  September,  1903,  it  did  not 
require  the  wits  of  a  political  bandit  to  see  that,  by 
staving  off  an  agreement  with  the  United  States  for 
a  few  months,  Colombia  could  get  possession  of  prop 
erty  and  privileges  which  the  French  were  selling  to 
the  Americans  for  $40,000,000.  So  the  Colombian 
Parliament  adjourned  in  October,  1903,  without 
even  taking  up  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty. 

Meanwhile  the  managers  of  the  French  Company 
became  greatly  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  losing  the 


1 84  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

sum  which  the  United  States  had  agreed  to  pay  for 
its  rights  and  diggings,  and  it  took  steps  to  avert  this 
total  loss.  The  most  natural  means  which  occurred 
to  it,  the  means  which  it  adopted,  was  to  incite  a 
revolution  in  the  State  of  Panama.  To  understand 
the  affair  truly,  the  reader  must  remember  that 
Panama  had  long  been  the  chief  source  of  wealth  to 
the  Republic  of  Colombia.  The  mountain  gentry 
who  conducted  the  Colombian  Government  at 
Bogota  treated  Panama  like  a  conquered  province, 
to  be  squeezed  to  the  utmost  for  the  benefit  of  the 
politicians.  There  was  neither  community  of  interest 
nor  racial  sympathy  between  the  Panamanians  and 
the  Colombians,  and,  as  it  required  a  journey  of  fif 
teen  days  to  go  from  Panama  to  the  Capital,  geo 
graphy,  also,  added  its  sundering  influence.  Quite 
naturally  the  Panamanians,  in  the  course  of  less  than 
half  a  century,  had  made  more  than  fifty  attempts 
to  revolt  from  Colombia  and  establish  their  own 
independence.  The  most  illiterate  of  them  could 
understand  that,  if  they  were  independent,  the 
money  which  they  received  and  passed  on  to  Bogota, 
for  the  bandits  there  to  spend,  would  remain  in  their 
own  hands.  An  appeal  to  their,  love  of  liberty,  being 
coupled  with  so  obvious  an  appeal  to  their  pockets, 
was  irresistible. 

Just  what  devices  the  French  Company  employed 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        185 

to  instigate  revolution,  can  be  read  in  the  interesting 
work  of  M.  Bunau-Varilla,  one  of  the  most  zealous 
officers  of  the  French  Company,  who  had  devoted  his 
life  to  achieving  the  construction  of  the  Trans- 
Isthmian  Canal.  He  was  indefatigable,  breezy,  and 
deliberately  indiscreet.  He  tells  much,  and  what  he 
does  not  tell  he  leaves  you  to  infer,  without  risk  of 
going  astray.  Mr.  William  Nelson  Cromwell,  of 
New  York,  the  general  counsel  of  the  Company,  off 
set  Varilla's  loquacity  by  a  proper  amount  of  reti 
cence.  Bunau-Varilla  hurried  over  from  Paris,  and 
had  interviews  with  President  Roosevelt  and  Secre 
tary  Hay,  but  could  not  draw  them  into  his  conspir 
acy.  The  President  told  him  that,  at  the  utmost,  he 
would  only  order  American  warships,  which  were  on 
the  Panama  coast,  to  prevent  any  attack  from  out 
side  which  might  cause  bloodshed  and  interfere  with 
the  undisturbed  passage  across  the  Isthmus,  a  duty 
which  the  United  States  was  pledged  to  perform. 

The  French  zealot-conspirator  freely  announced 
that  the  revolution  at  Panama  would  take  place  at 
noon  on  November  3d.  It  did  take  place  as  scheduled 
without  violence,  and  with  only  the  accidental  killing 
of  a  Chinaman  and  a  dog.  The  next  day  the  Revolu 
tionists  proclaimed  the  Republic  of  Panama,  and  on 
November  6th  the  United  States  formally  recognized 
its  existence  and  prepared  to  open  diplomatic  rela- 


1 86  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

tions  with  it.  The  Colombian  Government  had  tried 
to  send  troops  to  put  down  the  rebellion,  but  the 
American  warships,  obeying  their  orders  to  prevent 
bloodshed  or  fighting,  would  not  allow  the  troops  to 
land. 

As  soon  as  the  news  of  these  events  reached 
Bogota,  the  halls  of  Parliament  there  resounded  with 
wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth  and  protests,  and 
curses  on  the  perfidious  Americans  who  had  connived 
to  free  the  Panamanians  in  their  struggle  for  liberty. 
The  mountain  bandits  perceived  that  they  had  over 
reached  themselves.  Instead  of  the  $10,000,000 
which  their  envoy  Herran  had  deemed  sufficient; 
instead  of  the  $40,000,000  and  more,  which  their 
greed  had  counted  on  in  1904,  they  would  receive 
nothing.  The  Roosevelt  Government  immediately 
signed  a  contract  with  the  Republic  of  Panama,  by 
which  the  United  States  leased  a  zone  across  the 
Isthmus  for  building,  controlling,  and  operating,  the 
Canal.  Then  the  Colombians,  in  a  panic,  sent  their 
most  respectable  public  man,  and  formerly  their 
President,  General  Rafael  Reyes,  to  Washington, 
to  endeavor  to  persuade  the  Government  to  reverse 
its  compact  with  the  Panama  Republic.  The  black 
mailers  were  now  very  humble.  Mr.  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh,  who  was  counsel  for  Colombia,  told  me  that 
General  Reyes  was  authorized  to  accept  $8,000,000 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY        187 

for  all  the  desired  concessions,  "  and,"  Mr.  MacVeagh 
added,  "he  would  have  taken  five  millions,  but  Hay 
and  Roosevelt  were  so  foolish  that  they  would  n't 
accept." 

The  quick  decisions  of  the  Administration  in 
Washington,  which  accompanied  the  revolution  in 
Panama  and  the  recognition  of  the  new  Republic, 
were  made  by  Roosevelt.  I  have  seen  no  evidence 
that  Mr.  Hay  was  consulted  at  the  last  moment. 
When  the  stroke  was  accomplished,  many  good  per 
sons  in  the  United  States  denounced  it.  They  felt 
that  it  was  high-handed  and  brutal,  and  that  it 
fixed  an  indelible  blot  on  the  national  conscience. 
Many  of  them  did  not  know  of  the  long-drawn-out 
negotiations  and  of  the  Colombian  premeditated  de 
ceit;  others  knew,  but  overlooked  or  condoned.  They 
upheld  strictly  the  letter  of  the  law.  They  could  not 
deny  that  the  purpose  of  the  Colombians  was  to 
exact  blackmail.  It  meant  nothing  to  them  that 
Herran,  the  official  envoy,  had  drawn  up  and  signed 
a  treaty  under  instructions  from  Marroquin,  the 
President  of  Colombiavand  its  virtual  dictator,  who, 
having  approved  of  the  orders  under  which  Herran 
acted,  could  easily  have  required  the  Colombian 
Parliament  to  ratify  the  treaty.  Perfervidly  pious 
critics  of  Roosevelt  pictured  him  as  a  bully  without 
conscience,  and  they  blackened  his  aid  in  freeing  the 


1 88  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Panamanians  by  calling  it  "the  Rape  of  Panama." 
Some  of  these  persons  even  boldly  asserted  that 
John  Hay  died  of  remorse  over  his  part  in  this  wicked 
deed.  The  fact  is  that  John  Hay  died  of  a  disease 
which  was  not  caused  by  remorse,  and  that,  as  long 
as  he  lived,  he  publicly  referred  to  the  Panama  affair 
as  that  in  which  he  took  the  greatest  pride.  It  is  only 
in  the  old  Sunday-School  stories  that  Providence 
punishes  wrongdoing  with  such  commendable  swift 
ness,  and  causes  the  naughty  boy  who  goes  skating 
on  Sunday  to  drown  forthwith;  in  real  life  the  "mills 
of  God  grind  slowly.'*  Roosevelt  always  regarded 
with  equal  satisfaction  the  decision  by  which  the 
Panama  Canal  was  achieved  and  the  high  needs  of 
civilization  and  the  protection  of  the  United  States 
were  attended  to.  He  lived  long  enough  to  condemn 
the  proposal  of  some  of  our  morbidly  conscientious 
people,  hypnotized  by  the  same  old  crafty  Colom 
bians,  to  pay  Colombia  a  gratuity  five  times  greater 
than  that  which  General  Reyes  would  have  thank 
fully  received  in  December,  1903. 

Persons  of  different  temperaments,  but  of  equal 
patriotism  and  sincerity,  will  probably  pass  different 
verdicts  on  this  incident  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
Mr.  Leupp  quotes  a  member  of  Roosevelt's  Admin 
istration  as  stating  four  alternative  courses  the 
President  might  have  followed.  First,  he  might  have 


ROOSEVELT'S  FOREIGN  POLICY         189 

let  matters  drift  until  Congress  met,  and  then  sent 
a  message  on  the  subject,  shifting  the  responsibility 
from  his  own  shoulders  to  those  of  the  Congressmen. 
Secondly,  he  might  have  put  down  the  rebellion  and 
restored  Panama  to  Colombia;  but  this  would  have 
been  to  subject  them  against  their  will  to  a  foreign 
enemy  —  an  enormity  the  Anti- Imperialists  were 
still  decrying  in  our  holding  the  Philippines  against 
the  will  of  their  inhabitants.  Thirdly,  he  might  have 
withdrawn  American  warships  and  left  Colombia  to 
fight  it  out  with  the  Panamanians  —  but  this  would 
have  involved  bloodshed,  tumult,  and  interruption 
of  transit  across  the  Isthmus,  which  the  United 
States,  by  the  agreement  of  1846,  were  bound  to 
prevent.  Finally,  he  might  recognize  any  de  facto 
government  ready  and  willing  to  transact  business 
-  and  this  he  did.1 

That  the  Colombian  politicians,  who  repudiated 
the  treaty  Herran  had  framed,  were  blackmailers  of 
the  lowest  sort,  is  as  indisputable  as  is  the  fact  that 
whoever  begins  to  compromise  with  a  blackmailer  is 
lured  farther  and  farther  into  a  bog  until  he  is  finally 
swallowed  up.  Americans  should  know  also  that  dur 
ing  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1903,  German  agents 
were  busy  in  Bogota,  and  that,  since  German  capital 
ists  had  openly  announced  their  desire  to  buy  up 

1  Leupp,  lo-n. 


190  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  French  Company's  concession,  we  may  guess 
that  they  did  not  urge  Colombia  to  fulfill  her  obliga 
tion  to  the  United  States. 

Many  years  later  I  discussed  the  transaction  with 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  chaffing  him  with  being  a  wicked 
conspirator.  He  laughed,  and  replied :  "What  was  the 
use?  The  other  fellows  in  Paris  and  New  York  had 
taken  all  the  risk  and  were  doing  all  the  work.  In 
stead  of  trying  to  run  a  parallel  conspiracy,  I  had 
only  to  sit  still  and  profit  by  their  plot  —  if  it  suc 
ceeded."  He  said  also  that  he  had  intended  issuing  a 
public  announcement  that,  if  Colombia  by  a  given 
date  refused  to  come  to  terms,  he  would  seize  the 
Canal  Zone  in  behalf  of  civilization.  I  told  him  I 
rather  wished  that  he  had  accomplished  his  purpose 
in  that  way;  but  he  answered  that  events  matured 
too  quickly,  and  that,  in  any  case,  where  swift  action 
was  required,  the  Executive  and  not  Congress  must 
decide. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME 

THESE  early  diplomatic  settlements  in  Roose 
velt's  Administration  showed  the  world  that 
the  United  States  now  had  a  President  who  did  not 
seek  quarrels,  but  who  was  not  afraid  of  them,  who 
never  bluffed,  because  —  unlike  President  Cleveland 
and  Secretary  Olney  with  their  Venezuela  Message 
in  1895  —  ne  never  made  a  threat  which  he  could 
not  back  up  at  the  moment.  There  was  no  longer  a 
bed  of  roses  to  stifle  opposition;  whosoever  hit  at 
the  United  States  would  encounter  a  barrier  of  long, 
sharp,  and  unbending  thorns. 

These  particular  achievements  in  foreign  affairs, 
and  others  which  I  shall  mention  later,  gave  Roose 
velt  and  his  country  great  prestige  abroad  and  the 
admiration  of  a  large  part  of  his  countrymen.  But 
his  truly  significant  work  related  to  home  affairs. 
Now  at  last,  he,  the  young  David  of  the  New  Ideals, 
was  to  go  forth,  if  he  dared,  and  do  battle  with  the 
Goliath  of  Conservatism.  With  him  there  was  no 
question  of  daring.  He  had  been  waiting  for  twenty 
years  for  this  opportunity.  Such  a  conflict  or  duel  has 
rarely  been  witnessed,  because  it  rarely  happens  that 


I92  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

an  individual  who  consciously  embodies  the  aims  of 
an  epoch  is  accepted  by  that  epoch  as  its  champion. 
Looking  backward,  we  see  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
typified  the  ideals  of  Freedom  and  Union  which  were 
the  supreme  issues  of  his  time ;  but  this  recognition 
has  come  chiefly  since  his  death.  In  like  fashion  I 
believe  that  Roosevelt's  significance  as  a  champion 
of  Liberty,  little  suspected  by  his  contemporaries 
and  hardly  surmised  even  now,  will  require  the  lapse 
of  another  generation  before  it  is  universally  under 
stood. 

Many  obvious  reasons  account  for  this.  Most  of 
the  internal  reforms  which  Roosevelt  struggled  for 
lacked  the  dramatic  quality  or  the  picturesqueness 
which  appeals  to  average,  dull,  unimaginative  men 
and  women.  The  heroism  of  the  medical  experi 
menter  who  voluntarily  contracts  yellow  fever  and 
dies  —  and  thereby  saves  myriads  of  lives  —  makes 
little  impression  on  the  ordinary  person,  who  can  be 
roused  only  by  stories  of  battle  heroism,  of  soldiers 
and  torpedoes.  And  yet  the  attacks  which  Roosevelt 
made,  while  they  did  not  involve  death,  called  for 
the  highest  kind  of  civic  courage  and  fortitude. 

Then  again  a  political  combat  with  tongues  and 
arguments  seldom  conveys  the  impression  that 
through  it  irrevocable  Fate  gives  its  decision  to  the 
same  extent  that  a  contest  by  swords  and  volleys 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 


THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME       193 

does.  Political  campaigns  are  a  competition  of 
parties  and  only  the  immediate  partisans  who  direct 
and  carry  on  the  fight,  grow  very  hot.  The  great 
majority  of  a  party  is  not  fanatical,  and  a  citizen  who 
has  witnessed  many  elections,  some  for  and  some 
against  him,  comes  instinctively  to  feel  that  whoever 
wins  the  country  is  safe.  He  discounts  the  cries  of 
alarm  and  the  abuse  by  opponents.  And  only  in  his 
most  expansive  moments  does  he  flatter  himself  that 
his  party  really  represents  the  State.  The  Republican 
Party,  through  which  President  Roosevelt  had  to 
work,  was  by  no  means  an  ideal  instrument.  He  be 
lieved  in  Republicanism,  with  a  faith  only  less  de 
voted  than  that  with  which  he  embraced  the  fun 
damental  duties  and  spiritual  facts  of  life.  But  the 
Republicanism  which  he  revered  must  be  interpreted 
by  himself;  and  the  party  which  bore  the  name 
Republican  was  split  into  several  sections,  mutually 
discordant  if  not  actually  hostile.  It  seems  no  exag 
geration  to  say  that  the  underlying  motive  of  the 
majority  of  the  Republican  Party  during  Roosevelt's 
Presidency  was  to  uphold  Privilege,  just  as  much  as 
the  underlying  purpose  of  the  great  Whig  Party  in 
England  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  to  uphold 
Aristocracy.  Roosevelt's  purpose,  on  the  contrary, 
was  to  clip  the  arrogance  of  Privilege  based  on  Pluto 
cracy.  To  achieve  this  he  must,  in  some  measure, 


194  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

compel  the  party  of  Plutocracy  to  help  him.  I  speak, 
so  far  as  possible,  as  a  historian,  —  and  not  as  a  par 
tisan,  —  who  recognizes  that  the  rise  of  a  Plutocracy 
was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  amassing,  during  a 
generation,  of  unprecedented  wealth,  and  that,  in 
a  Republic  governed  by  parties,  the  all-dominant 
Plutocracy  would  naturally  see  to  it  that  the  all- 
dominant  party  which  governed  the  country  and 
made  its  laws  should  be  plutocratic.  If  the  spheres 
in  which  Plutocracy  made  most  of  its  money  had 
been  Democratic,  then  the  Democratic  Party  would 
have  served  the  Plutocracy.  As  it  was,  in  the  prac 
tical  relation  between  the  parties,  the  Democrats  got 
their  share  of  the  spoils,  and  the  methods  of  a  Demo 
cratic  Boss,  like  Senator  Gorman,  did  not  differ  from 
those  of  a  Republican  Boss,  like  Senator  Aldrich. 

Roosevelt  relied  implicitly  on  justice  and  common 
sense.  He  held,  as  firmly  as  Lincoln  had  held,  to  the 
inherent  rightmindedness  of  the  "  plain  people."  And 
however  fierce  and  formidable  the  opposition  to  his 
policies  might  be  in  Congress,  he  trusted  that,  if  he 
could  make  clear  to  the  average  voters  of  the  coun 
try  what  he  was  aiming  at,  they  would  support  him. 
And  they  did  support  him.  Time  after  time,  when  the 
Interests  appeared  to  be  on  the  point  of  crushing 
his  reform,  the  people  rose  and  coerced  Congress 
into  adopting  it.  I  would  not  imply  that  Roosevelt 


THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME       195 

assumed  an  autocratic  manner  in  this  warfare.  He 
left  no  doubt  of  his  intention,  still  less  could  he  dis 
guise  the  fact  of  his  tremendous  personal  vigor;  but 
rather  than  threaten  he  tried  to  persuade;  he  was 
good-natured  to  everybody,  he  explained  the  reason 
ableness  of  his  measures;  and  only  when  the  satraps 
of  Plutocracy  so  far  lost  their  discretion  as  to  threaten 
him,  did  he  bluntly  challenge  them  to  do  their 
worst. 

The  Interests  had  undeniably  reached  such  pro 
portions  that  unless  they  were  chastened  and  con 
trolled,  the  freedom  of  the  Republic  could  not  sur 
vive.  And  yet,  in  justice,  we  must  recall  that  when 
they  grew  up  in  the  day  of  small  things,  they  were 
beneficial ;  their  founders  had  no  idea  of  their  becom 
ing  a  menace  to  the  Nation.  The  man  who  built  the 
first  cotton-mill  in  his  section,  or  started  the  first 
iron-furnace,  or  laid  the  first  stretch  of  railroad,  was 
rightly  hailed  as  a  benefactor;  and  he  could  not  fore 
see  that  the  time  would  come  when  his  mill,  entering 
into  a  business  combination  with  a  hundred  other 
mills  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  would  be 
merged  in  a  monopoly  to  strangle  competition  in 
cotton  manufacture.  Likewise,  the  first  stretch  of 
railroad  joined  another,  and  this  a  third,  and  so  on, 
until  there  had  arisen  a  vast  railway  system  under 
a  single  management  from  New  York  to  San  Fran- 


196  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

cisco.  Now,  while  these  colossal  monopolies  had 
grown  up  so  naturally,  responding  to  the  wonderful 
expansion  of  the  population  they  served,  the  laws 
and  regulations  which  applied  to  them,  having  been 
framed  in  the  days  when  they  were  young  and  small 
and  harmless,  still  obtained.  The  clothes  made  for  the 
little  boy  would  not  do  for  the  giant  man.  I  have 
heard  a  lawyer  complain  that  statutes,  which  barely 
sufficed  when  travel  and  transportation  went  by 
stage-coach,  were  stretched  to  fit  the  needs  of  the 
public  in  its  relation  with  transcontinental  railroads. 
This  is  an  exaggeration,  no  doubt,  but  it  points 
towards  truth.  The  Big  Interests  were  so  swollen 
that  they  went  ahead  on  their  own  affairs  and  paid 
little  attention  to  the  community  on  which  they  were 
battening.  They  saw  to  it  that  if  any  laws  concerning 
them  had  to  be  made  by  the  State  Legislatures  or  by 
Congress,  their  agents  in  those  bodies  should  make 
them.  A  certain  Mr.  Vanderbilt,  the  president  of  one 
of  the  largest  railroad  systems  in  America,  a  person 
whose  other  gems  of  wit  and  wisdom  have  not  been 
recorded,  achieved  such  immortality,  as  it  is,  by  re 
marking,  "The  public  be  damned."  Probably  the 
president  and  directors  of  a  score  of  other  monopo 
lies  would  have  heartily  echoed  that  impolitic  and 
petulant  display  of  arrogance.  Impolitic  the  exclama 
tion  was,  because  the  American  public  had  already 


THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME       197 

begun  to  feel  that  the  Big  Interests  were  putting 
its  freedom  in  jeopardy,  and  it  was  beginning  to  call 
for  laws  which  should  reduce  the  power  of  those  in 
terests. 

As  early  as  1887  the  Interstate  Commerce  Act  was 
passed,  the  earliest  considerable  attempt  to  regulate 
rates  and  traffic.  Then  followed  anti- trust  laws  which 
aimed  at  the  suppression  of  "pools,"  in  which  many 
large  producers  or  manufacturers  combined  to  sell 
their  staples  at  a  uniform  price,  a  practice  which  in 
evitably  set  up  monopolies.  The  " Trusts"  were  to 
these  what  the  elephant  is  to  a  colt.  When  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation  was  formed  by  uniting 
eleven  large  steel  plants,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of 
$1,100,000,000,  the  American  people  had  an  inkling 
of  the  magnitude  to  which  Trusts  might  swell.  In 
like  fashion  when  the  Northern  Pacific  and  the  Great 
Northern  Railroads  found  a  legal  impediment  to 
their  being  run  by  one  management,  they  got  round 
the  law  by  organizing  the  Northern  Securities  Com 
pany,  which  was  to  hold  the  stocks  and  bonds  of 
both  railroads.  And  so  of  many  other  important 
industrial  and  transportation  mergers.  The  most 
powerful  financial  promoters  of  the  country,  led  by 
Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  were  busy  setting  up  these 
combinations  on  a  large  scale  and  the  keenest  cor 
poration  lawyers  spent  their  energy  and  wits  in 


198  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

framing  charters  which  obeyed  the  letter  of  the  laws, 
but  wholly  denied  their  spirit. 

President  Roosevelt  worked  openly,  with  a  defi 
nite  purpose.  First,  he  would  enforce  every  law  on 
the  statute  book,  without  exception  in  favor  of  any 
individual  or  company;  next,  he  suggested  to  Con 
gress  the  need  of  new  legislation  to  resist  further 
encroachments  by  capitalists  in  the  fields  where  they 
had  already  been  checked;  finally,  he  pointed  out 
that  Congress  must  begin  at  once  to  protect  the 
national  resources  which  had  been  allowed  to  go  to 
waste,  or  to  be  seized  and  exploited  by  private  con 
cerns. 

I  do  not  intend  to  take  up  in  chronological  se 
quence,  or  in  detail,  Roosevelt's  battles  to  secure 
proper  legislation.  To  do  so  would  require  the  dis 
cussion  of  legal  and  constitutional  questions,  which 
would  scarcely  fit  a  sketch  like  the  present.  The  main 
things  to  know  are  the  general  nature  of  his  reforms 
and  his  own  attitude  in  conducting  the  fight.  He 
aimed  directly  at  stopping  abuses  which  gave  a  priv 
ileged  few  undue  advantage  in  amassing  and  distrib 
uting  wealth.  The  practical  result  of  the  laws  was  to 
spread  justice  and  equality  throughout  the  coun 
try  and  to  restore  thereby  the  true  spirit  of  De 
mocracy  on  which  the  Founders  created  the  Re 
public.  He  fought  fairly,  but  warily,  never  letting 


THE  GREAT  CRUSADE  AT  HOME       199 

slip  a  point  that  would  tell  against  his  opponents, 
who,  it  must  be  said,  did  not  always  attack  him 
honorably. 

At  first,  they  regarded  the  President  as  a  head 
strong  young  man  —  he  was  the  youngest  who  had 
ever  sat  in  the  Presidential  chair  —  who  wished  to 
have  his  own  way  in  order  to  show  the  country  that 
he  was  its  leader.  They  did  not  see  that  ideals  which 
dated  back  to  his  childhood  were  really  shaping  his 
acts.  He  had  seen  law  in  the  making  out  West;  he 
had  seen  law,  and  especially  corporation  law,  in  the 
making  when  he  was  in  the  New  York  Assembly 
and  Governor  of  New  York;  he  knew  the  devices 
by  which  the  Interests  caused  laws  to  be  made  and 
passed  for  their  special  benefit,  or  evaded  inconven 
ient  laws.  But  he  suffered  no  disillusion  as  to  the 
ideal  of  Law,  the  embodiment  and  organ  of  Jus 
tice.  Legal  quibbles,  behind  which  designing  and 
wicked  men  dodged,  nauseated  him,  and  he  made 
no  pretense  of  wishing  to  uphold  them. 

The  champions  of  the  Interests  found  out  before 
long  that  the  young  President  was  neither  head 
strong  nor  a  mere  creature  of  impulse,  but  that  he 
followed  a  thoroughly  rational  system  of  principles; 
and  so  they  had  to  abandon  the  notion  that  the  next 
gust  of  impulse  might  blow  him  over  to  their  side. 
They  must  take  him  as  he  was,  and  make  the  best 


200  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  it.  Now,  I  must  repeat,  that,  for  these  gentlemen, 
the  very  idea  that  anybody  could  propose  to  run 
the  American  Government,  or  to  organize  American 
Society,  on  any  other  standard  than  theirs,  seemed 
to  them  preposterous.  The  Bourbon  nobles  in  France 
and  in  Italy  were  not  more  amazed  when  the  Revo 
lutionists  proposed  to  sweep  them  away  than  were 
the  American  Plutocrats  of  the  Rooseveltian  era 
when  he  promoted  laws  to  regulate  them.  The  Bour 
bon  thinks  the  earth  will  perish  unless  Bourbon- 
ism  governs  it;  the  American  Plutocrat  thought 
that  America  existed  simply  to  enrich  him.  He 
clung  to  his  rights  and  privileges  with  the  tenacity 
of  a  drowning  man  clinging  to  a  plank,  and  he  de 
ceived  himself  into  thinking  that,  in  desperately 
trying  to  save  himself  and  his  order,  he  was  saving 
Society. 

Most  tragic  of  all,  to  one  who  regards  history  as 
the  revelation  of  the  unfolding  of  the  moral  nature 
of  mankind,  was  the  fact  that  these  men  had  not 
the  slightest  idea  that  they  were  living  in  a  moral 
world,  or  that  a  new  influx  of  moral  inspiration  had 
begun  to  permeate  Society  in  its  politics,  its  busi 
ness,  and  its  daily  conduct.  The  great  ship  Privilege, 
on  which  they  had  voyaged  with  pomp  and  satis 
faction,  was  going  down  and  they  knew  it  not. 


I 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS 

DO  not  wish  to  paint  Roosevelt  in  one  light 
only,  and  that  the  most  favorable.  Had  no 
other  been  shed  upon  him,  his  Administration  would 
have  been  too  bland  for  human  belief,  and  life  for 
him  would  have  palled.  For  his  inexhaustible  en 
ergy  hungered  for  action.  As  soon  as  his  judgment 
convinced  him  that  a  thing  ought  to  be  done  he 
set  about  doing  it.  Recently,  I  asked  one  of  the 
most  perspicacious  members  of  his  Cabinet,  "What 
do  you  consider  Theodore's  dominant  trait  ?"  He 
thought  for  a  while,  and  then  replied,  "  Combative- 
ness."  No  doubt  the  public  also,  at  least  while 
Roosevelt  was  in  office,  thought  of  him  first  as  a 
fighter.  The  idea  that  he  was  truculent  or  pugna 
cious,  that  he  went  about  with  a  chip  on  his  shoul 
der,  that  he  loved  fighting  for  the  sake  of  fighting, 
was,  however,  a  mistake.  During  the  eight  years  he 
was  President  he  kept  the  United  States  out  of  war ; 
not  only  that,  he  settled  long-standing  causes  of 
irritation,  such  as  the  dispute  over  the  Alaskan 
Boundary,  which  might,  under  provocation,  have 
led  to  war.  Even  more  than  this,  without  striking 


202  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

a  blow,  he  repelled  the  persistent  attempts  of  the 
German  Emperor  to  gain  a  foothold  on  this  conti 
nent  ;  he  repelled  those  snakelike  attacks  and  forced 
the  Imperial  Bully,  not  merely  to  retreat  ignomin- 
iously  but  to  arbitrate.  And  in  foreign  affairs, 
Roosevelt  shone  as  a  peacemaker.  He  succeeded  in 
persuading  the  Russian  Czar  to  come  to  terms 
with  the  Mikado  of  Japan.  And  soon  after,  when 
the  German  Emperor  threatened  to  make  war  on 
France,  a  letter  from  Roosevelt  to  him  caused  Wil 
liam  to  reconsider  his  brutal  plan,  and  to  submit  the 
Moroccan  dispute  to  a  conference  of  the  Powers  at 
Algeciras. 

Instead  of  the  braggart  and  brawler  that  his  ene 
mies  mispainted  him,  I  saw  in  Roosevelt,  rather,  a 
strong  man  who  had  taken  early  to  heart  Hamlet 's 
maxim  and  had  steadfastly  practiced  it: 

"  Rightly  to  be  great 
Is  not  to  stir  without  great  argument, 
But  greatly  to  find  quarrel  in  a  straw 
When  honour's  at  the  stake." 

He  himself  summed  up  this  part  of  his  philosophy 
in  a  phrase  which  has  become  a  proverb:  " Speak 
softly,  but  carry  a  big  stick."  More  than  once  in  his 
later  years  he  quoted  this  to  me,  adding,  that  it  was 
precisely  because  this  or  that  Power  knew  that  he 
carried  a  big  stick,  that  he  was  enabled  to  speak 
softly  with  effect. 


THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  203 

No  man  of  our  time  better  deserved  the  Nobel 
Peace  Prize  than  did  he.  The  fallacy  that  Roosevelt, 
like  the  proverbial  Irishman  at  Donnybrook  Fair, 
had  rather  fight  than  eat,  spread  through  the  coun 
try,  and  indeed  throughout  the  world,  and  had  its 
influence  in  determining  whether  men  voted  for  him 
or  not.  His  enemies  used  it  as  proof  that  he  was  not 
a  safe  President,  but  they  took  means  much  more 
malignant  than  this  to  discredit  and  destroy  him. 
When  the  Big  Interests  discovered  that  they  could 
not  silence  him,  they  circulated  stories  of  all  kinds 
that  would  have  rendered  even  the  archangel  Ga 
briel  suspect  to  some  worthy  dupes. 

They  threw  doubts,  for  instance,  on  his  sanity, 
and  one  heard  that  the  "  Wall  Street  magnates  "  em 
ployed  the  best  alienists  in  the  country  to  analyze 
everything  the  President  did  and  said,  in  the  hope 
of  accumulating  evidence  to  show  that  he  was  too 
unbalanced  to  be  President.  Not  content  with  steal 
ing  away  his  reputation  for  mental  competence,  they 
shot  into  the  dark  the  gravest  charges  against  his 
honor.  A  single  story,  still  believed,  as  I  know,  by 
persons  of  eminence  in  their  professions,  will  illus 
trate  this.  When  one  of  the  great  contests  between 
the  President  and  the  Interests  was  on,  he  remem 
bered  that  one  of  their  representatives  in  New  York 
had  damaging,  confidential  letters  from  him.  Hear- 


204  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ing  that  these  might  be  produced,  Roosevelt  tele 
phoned  one  of  his  trusty  agents  to  break  open  the 
desk  of  the  Captain  of  Industry  where  they  were 
kept,  and  to  bring  them  to  the  White  House,  before 
ten  o'clock  the  following  morning.  This  was  done. 
To  believe  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
would  engage  in  a  vulgar  robbery  of  the  jimmy  and 
black-mask  sort  indicates  a  degree  of  credulity  which 
even  the  alienists  could  hardly  have  expected  to  en 
counter  outside  of  their  asylums.  It  suggests  also, 
that  Baron  Miinchausen,  like  the  Wandering  Jew 
Ahasuerus,  has  never  died.  Does  any  one  suppose 
that  the  person  whose  desk  was  rifled  would  have 
kept  quiet?  Or  that,  if  the  Interests  had  had  even 
reasonably  sure  evidence  of  the  President's  guilt, 
they  would  not  have  published  it?  To  set  spies  and 
detectives  upon  him  with  orders  to  trail  him  night 
and  day  was,  according  to  rumor,  an  obvious  expe 
dient  for  his  enemies  to  employ. 

I  repeat  these  stories,  not  because  I  believe  them, 
but  because  many  persons  did,  and  such  gossip,  like 
the  cruel  slanders  whispered  against  President  Cleve 
land  years  before,  gained  some  credence.  Roosevelt 
was  so  natural,  so  unguarded,  in  his  speech  and  ways, 
that  he  laid  himself  open  to  calumny.  The  delight  he 
took  in  establishing  the  Ananias  Club,  and  the  rapid 
ity  with  which  he  found  new  members  for  it,  seemed 


THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  205 

to  justify  strong  doubts  as  to  his  temper  and  taste, 
if  not  as  to  his  judgment.  The  vehemence  of  his  pub 
lic  speaking,  which  was  caused  in  part  by  a  physi 
cal  difficulty  of  utterance  —  the  sequel  of  his  early 
asthmatic  trouble  —  and  in  part  by  his  extraordi 
nary  vigor,  created  among  some  of  the  hearers  who 
did  not  know  him  the  impression  that  he  must  be  a 
hard  drinker,  or  that  he  drank  to  stimulate  his  elo 
quence.  After  he  retired  from  office,  his  enemies,  in 
order  to  undermine  his  further  political  influence, 
sowed  the  falsehood  that  he  was  a  drunkard.  I  do 
not  recall  that  they  ever  suggested  that  he  used  his 
office  for  his  private  profit  —  there  are  some  things 
too  absurd  for  even  malice  to  suggest  —  but  he 
had  reason  enough  many  times  to  calm  himself  by 
reflecting  that  his  Uncle  Jimmy  Bulloch,  the  best 
of  men,  believed  just  such  lies,  and  the  most  atro 
cious  insinuations,  against  Mr.  Gladstone. 

Of  course,  nearly  all  public  men  have  to  undergo 
similar  virulent  defamation.  I  have  heard  a  well- 
known  publicist,  a  lawyer  of  ability,  argue  that  both 
George  Washington  and  Abraham  Lincoln  did  not 
escape  from  what  seems  now  incredible  abuse,  and 
that  they  were,  nevertheless,  the  noblest  of  men  and 
peerless  patriots ;  and  then  he  went  on  to  argue  that 
President  Woodrow  Wilson  has  been  the  target  of 
similar  malignity,  and  to  leave  you  to  conclude  that 


206  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

consequently  Wilson  is  in  the  same  class  with  Wash 
ington  and  Lincoln.  If  he  had  put  his  thesis  in  a  dif 
ferent  form,  the  publicist  might  have  seen  himself, 
as  his  hearers  did,  the  absurdity  of  it.  Suppose  he 
had  said,  for  instance:  "In  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Washington  and  Lincoln  each  kept  a  cow,  they  were 
both  peerless  patriots,  therefore,  as  President  Wilson 
keeps  a  cow,  he  must  be  a  peerless  patriot."  One 
fears  that  logic  is  somewhat  neglected  even  in  the 
training  of  lawyers  in  our  day. 

The  commonest  charge  against  Roosevelt,  and 
the  one  which  seemed,  on  the  surface  at  least,  to  be 
most  plausible,  was  that  he  was  devoured  by  insatia 
ble  ambition.  The  critical  remarked  that  wherever 
he  went  he  was  always  the  central  figure.  The  truth 
is,  that  he  could  no  more  help  being  the  central  figure 
than  a  lion  could  in  any  gathering  of  lesser  crea 
tures;  the  fact  that  he  was  Roosevelt  decided  that. 
He  did  use  the  personal  pronoun  "I,"  and  the  pos 
sessive  pronoun  "My,"  with  such  frequency  as  to 
irritate  good  persons  who  were  quite  as  egotistical 
as  he  —  if  that  be  egotism  —  but  who  used  such 
modest  circumlocutions  as  "the  present  writer,"  or 
"one,"  to  camouflage  their  self-conceit.  Roosevelt 
enjoyed  almost  all  his  experiences  with  equal  zest, 
and  he  expressed  his  enjoyment  without  reserve. 
He  was  quite  as  well  aware  of  his  foibles  as  his  crit- 


THE  TWO  R60SEVELTS  207 

ics  were,  and  he  made  merry  over  them.  Probably 
nobody  laughed  more  heartily  than  he  at  the  pleas 
antly  humorous  remark  of  one  of  his  boys:  "Father 
never  likes  to  go  to  a  wedding  or  a  funeral,  because 
he  can't  be  the  bride  at  the  wedding  or  the  corpse 
at  the  funeral." 

Ambition  he  had,  the  ambition  which  every 
healthy-minded  man  ought  to  have  to  deserve  the 
good-will  and  approbation  of  his  fellows.  This  he 
admitted  over  and  over  again,  and  he  made  no  pre 
tense  of  not  taking  satisfaction  from  the  popularity 
his  countrymen  showered  upon  him.  In  writing  to 
a  friend  that  he  wished  to  be  a  candidate  in  1904, 
he  distinguished  between  the  case  of  Lincoln  in  1864 
and  that  of  himself  and  other  Presidential  candi 
dates  for  renomination.  In  1864,  the  crisis  was  so 
tremendous  that  Lincoln  must  have  considered  that 
chiefly,  irrespective  of  his  own  hopes :  whereas  Roose 
velt  in  1904,  like  Jackson,  Grant,  Cleveland,  and  the 
other  two-term  Presidents,  might,  without  impro 
priety,  look  upon  reelection  as,  in  a  measure,  a  per 
sonal  tribute. 

One  of  my  purposes  in  writing  this  sketch  will 
have  failed,  if  I  have  not  made  clear  the  character  of 
Roosevelt's  ambition.  He  could  not  be  happy  unless 
he  were  busily  at  work.  If  that  work  were  in  a  public 
office  he  was  all  the  happier.  But  the  way  in  which 


208  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  accepted  one  office  after  another,  each  unrelated 
to  the  preceding,  was  so  desultory  as  to  prove  that 
he  did  not  begin  life  with  a  deep-laid  design  on  the 
Presidency.  He  got  valuable  political  notoriety  as 
an  Assemblyman,  but  that  was,  as  I  have  so  often 
said,  because  he  could  not  be  inconspicuous  any 
where.  He  took  the  office  of  Civil  Service  Commis 
sioner,  although  everybody  regarded  that  as  a  com 
monplace  field  bounded  on  three  sides  by  political 
oblivion;  and  only  a  dreamer  could  have  supposed 
that  his  service  as  Chief  Police  Commissioner  of  New 
York  City  could  lead  to  the  White  H@use.  ®nly  when 
he  became  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  can  he 
be  said  to  have  come  within  striking  distance  of  the 
great  target.  In  enlisting  in  the  Spanish  War  and 
organizing  the  Rough  Riders,  he  may  well  have  re 
flected  that  military  prowess  has  often  favored  a  Pres 
idential  candidacy;  but  even  here,  his  sense  of  patri 
otic  duty  and  his  desire  to  experience  the  soldier's  life 
were  almost  indisputably  his  chief  motives.  As  Gov 
ernor  of  New  York,  however,  he  could  not  disguise 
from  himself  the  fact  that  that  position  might  prove 
again,  as  it  had  proved  in  the  case  of  Cleveland,  the 
stepping-stone  to  the  Presidency.  On  finding,  how 
ever,  that  Platt  and  the  Bosses,  exasperated  by  him 
as  Governor,  wished  to  get  rid  of  him  by  making 
him  Vice- President,  and  knowing  that  in  the  normal 


THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  209 

course  of  events  a  Vice-President  never  became 
President,  he  tried  to  refuse  nomination  to  the  lower 
office.  And  only  when  he  perceived  that  the  masses 
of  the  people,  the  country  over,  and  not  merely  the 
Bosses,  insisted  on  nominating  him,  did  he  accept. 
This  brief  summary  of  his  political  progress  assuredly 
does  not  bear  out  the  charge  that  he  was  the  victim 
of  uncontrollable  ambition. 

Roosevelt's  Ananias  Club  caught  the  imagination 
of  the  country,  but  not  always  favorably.  Those 
whom  he  elected  into  it,  for  instance,  did  not  relish 
the  notoriety.  Others  thought  that  it  betokened  ir 
ritation  in  him,  and  that  a  man  in  his  high  position 
ought  not  to  punish  persons  who  were  presumably 
trustworthy  by  branding  them  so  conspicuously.  In 
fact,  I  suppose,  he  sometimes  applied  the  brand  too 
hastily,  under  the  spur  of  sudden  resentment.  The 
most  open  of  men  himself,  he  had  no  hesitation  in 
commenting  on  anybody  or  any  topic  with  the 
greatest  indiscretion.  For  he  took  it  for  granted  that 
even  the  strangers  who  heard  him  would  hold  his 
remarks  as  confidential.  When,  therefore,  one  of  his 
hearers  went  outside  and  reported  in  public  what 
the  President  had  said,  Roosevelt  disavowed  it, 
and  put  the  babbler  in  the  Ananias  class.  What  a 
President  wishes  the  public  to  know,  he  tells  it 
himself.  What  he  utters  in  private  should,  in  honor, 
be  held  as  confidential. 


210  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

When  I  say  that  Roosevelt  was  astonishingly 
open,  I  do  not  mean  that  he  blurted  out  everything, 
for  he  always  knew  the  company  with  whom  he 
talked,  and  if  there  were  any  among  them  with 
whom  it  would  be  imprudent  to  risk  an  indiscre 
tion,  he  took  care  to  talk  "for  safety."  With  him,  a 
secret  was  a  secret,  and  he  could  be  as  silent  as  an 
unopened  Egyptian  tomb.  Certain  diplomatic  affairs 
he  did  not  lisp,  even  to  his  Secretary  of  State.  So  far 
as  appears,  John  Hay  knew  nothing  about  the  Presi 
dent's  interviews  with  the  German  Ambassador 
Holleben,  which  forced  William  II  to  arbitrate. 
And  he  sometimes  prepared  a  bill  for  Congress  with 
out  consulting  his  Cabinet,  for  fear  that  the  stock 
jobbers  might  get  wind  of  it  and  bull  or  bear  the 
market  with  the  news. 

Before  passing  on,  I  must  remark  that  some  cases 
of  apparent  mendacity  or  inaccuracy  on  the  part 
of  a  President  —  especially  if  he  were  as  voluble 
and  busy  as  Roosevelt  —  must  be  attributed  to 
forgetfulness  or  misunderstanding  and  not  to  wil 
ful  lying.  A  person  coming  from  an  interview  with 
him  might  construe  as  a  promise  the  kindly  remarks 
with  which  the  President  wished  to  soften  a  refusal. 
The  promise,  which  was  no  promise,  not  being  kept, 
the  suppliant  accused  the  President  of  faithlessness 
or  falsehood.  McKinley,  it  was  said,  could  say  no 


THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  211 

to  three  different  seekers  for  the  same  office  so 
balmily  that  each  of  them  went  away  convinced 
that  he  was  the  successful  applicant.  Yet  McKinley 
escaped  the  charge  of  mendacity  and  Roosevelt,  who 
deserved  it  far  less,  did  not. 

In  his  writings  and  speeches,  Roosevelt  uttered 
his  opinions  so  candidly  that  we  need  not  fall  back 
on  breaches  of  confidence  to  explain  why  his  oppo 
nents  were  maddened  by  them.  Plutocrats  and  mo 
nopolists  might  well  wince  at  being  called  "  malefac 
tors  of  great  wealth/'  "the  wealthy  criminal  class." 
Such  expressions  had  the  virtue,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  rhetoric,  of  being  so  descriptive  that  any 
body  could  visualize  them.  They  stung;  they  shed 
indefinable  odium  on  a  whole  class;  and,  no  doubt, 
this  was  just  what  Roosevelt  intended.  To  many 
critics  they  seemed  cruel,  because,  instead  of  al 
lowing  for  exceptions,  they  huddled  all  plutocrats 
together,  the  virtuous  and  the  vicious  alike.  And 
so  with  the  victims  of  his  phrase,  "undesirable  citi 
zens."  I  marvel  rather,  however,  that  Roosevelt, 
given  his  extraordinary  talent  of  flashing  epithets 
and  the  rush  of  his  indignation  when  he  was  doing 
battle  for  a  good  cause,  displayed  as  much  modera 
tion  as  he  did.  Had  he  been  a  demagogue,  he  would 
have  roused  the  masses  against  the  capitalists  and 
have  goaded  them  to  such  a  pitch  of  hatred  that 


212  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

they  would  have  looked  to  violence,  bloodshed,  and 
injustice,  as  the  remedy  they  must  apply. 

But  Roosevelt  was  farthest  removed  from  the 
Revolutionists  of  the  vulgar,  red-handed  class.  He 
consecrated  his  life  to  prevent  Revolution.  All  his 
action  in  the  conflict  between  Labor  and  Capital 
aimed  at  conciliation.  He  told  the  plutocrats  their 
defects  with  brutal  frankness,  and  if  he  promoted 
laws  to  curb  them,  it  was  because  he  realized,  as 
they  did  not,  that,  unless  they  mended  their  ways, 
they  would  bring  down  upon  themselves  a  Socialist 
avalanche  which  they  could  not  withstand.  What 
set  the  seal  of  consecration  on  his  work  was  his  treat 
ment  of  Labor  with  equal  justice.  Unlike  the  dema 
gogue,  he  did  not  flatter  the  "horny-handed  sons 
of  toil"  or  obsequiously  do  the  bidding  of  railroad 
brotherhoods,  or  pretend  that  the  capitalist  had  no 
rights,  and  that  all  workingmen  were  good  merely 
because  they  worked.  On  the  contrary,  he  told  them 
that  no  class  was  above  the  law;  he  warned  them 
that  if  Labor  attempted  to  get  its  demands  by  vio 
lence,  he  would  put  it  down.  He  ridiculed  the  idea 
that  honest  citizenship  depends  on  the  more  or 
less  money  a  man  has  in  his  pocket.  "A  man  who 
is  good  enough  to  shed  his  blood  for  his  country," 
Roosevelt  said  in  a  Fourth-of-July  speech  at  Spring 
field,  Illinois,  in  1903,  "is  good  enough  to  be  given 


THE  TWO  ROOSEVELTS  213 

a  square  deal  afterward.  More  than  that  no  man  is 
entitled  to,  and  less  than  that  no  man  shall  have." 

That  phrase,  "a  square  deal,"  stuck  in  the  hearts 
of  the  American  people.  It  summed  up  what  they 
regarded  as  Roosevelt's  most  characteristic  trait. 
He  was  the  man  of  the  square  deal,  who  instinctively 
resented  injustice  done  to  those  who  could  not  pro 
tect  themselves;  the  friend  of  the  under  dog,  the 
companion  of  the  self-reliant  and  the  self-respecting. 
It  is  under  this  aspect  that  Roosevelt  seems  most 
likely  to  live  in  popular  history. 

So,  from  the  time  he  became  President,  the  public 
was  divided  into  believing  that  there  were  two  Roose- 
velts.  His  enemies  made  almost  a  monster  of  him, 
denouncing  and  fearing  him  as  violent,  rash,  pugna 
cious,  egotistical,  ogreish  in  his  mad  hatred  of  Capi 
tal,  and  Capitalists  condemned  him  as  hypocritical, 
cruel,  lying,  and  vindictive.  The  other  side,  how 
ever,  insisted  on  his  courage;  he  was  a  fighter,  but 
he  always  fought  to  defend  the  weak  and  to  uphold 
the  right;  he  was  equally  unmoved  by  Bosses  and 
by  demagogues ;  in  his  human  relations  he  regarded 
only  what  a  man  was,  not  his  class  or  condition ;  he 
had  a  great-hearted,  jovial  simplicity;  a  far-seeing 
and  steadfast  patriotism;  he  preached  the  Square 
Deal  and  he  practiced  it;  even  more  than  Lincoln 
he  was  accessible  to  every  one. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER 

DURING  the  first  years  of  Roosevelt's  Admin 
istration  he  had  to  encounter  many  condi 
tions  which  existed  rather  from  the  momentum  they 
had  from  the  past  than  from  any  living  vigor  of  their 
own.  It  was  a  time  of  transition.  The  group  of  poli 
ticians  dating  from  the  Civil  War  was  nearly  ex 
tinct,  and  the  leaders  who  had  come  to  the  front 
after  1870  were  also  much  thinned  in  number,  and 
fast  dropping  off.  Washington  itself  was  becoming 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities  in  the  world,  with 
its  broad  avenues,  seldom  thronged,  its  circles  and 
squares,  whose  frequenters  seemed  never  busy,  its 
spirit  of  leisure,  its  suggestion  of  opulence  and  ampli 
tude,  and  of  a  not  too  zealous  or  disturbing  hold 
on  reality.  You  still  saw  occasionally  a  tiny  cottage 
inhabited  by  a  colored  family  cuddled  up  against  a 
new  and  imposing  palace,  just  as  you  might  pass  a 
colored  mammy  on  the  same  sidewalk  with  a  million 
aire  Senator,  for  the  residential  section  had  not  yet 
been  socially  standardized. 

Only  a  few  years  before,  under  President  Cleve 
land,  a  single  telephone  sufficed  for  the  White  House, 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    215 

and  as  the  telephone  operator  stopped  work  at  six 
o'clock,  the  President  himself  or  some  member  of 
his  family  had  to  answer  calls  during  the  evening. 
A  single  secretary  wrote  in  long  hand  most  of  the 
Presidential  correspondence.  Examples  of  similar 
primitiveness  might  be  found  almost  everywhere, 
and  the  older  generation  seemed  to  imagine  that  a 
certain  slipshod  and  dozing  quality  belonged  to  the 
very  idea  of  Democracy.  If  you  were  neatly  dressed 
and  wide  awake,  you  would  inevitably  be  remarked 
among  your  fellows;  such  remark  would  imply  su 
periority;  and  to  be  superior  was  supposedly  to  be 
undemocratic. 

Nevertheless  this  was  a  time  of  transition,  and  the 
vigor  which  emanated  from  the  young  President 
passed  like  electricity  through  all  lines  and  has 
tened  the  change.  He  caused  the  White  House  to  be 
remodeled  and  fitted  on  the  one  hand  for  social  pur 
poses  which  required  much  more  spacious  accom 
modation,  and  on  the  other  for  offices  in  which  he 
could  conduct  the  largely  increased  Presidential 
business.  Instead  of  one  telephone  there  were  many 
working  night  and  day,  and  instead  of  a  single  long 
hand  secretary,  there  were  a  score  of  stenographers 
and  typists.  Before  he  left  Washington  he  saw  a 
vast  Union  Station  erected  instead  of  the  over 
grown  shanties  at  Sixth  Street,  and  he  had  encour- 


2i6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

aged  the  laying-out  of  the  waste  places  beyond  the 
Capitol,  thus  adding  to  the  city  another  and  impos 
ing  section.  His  interest  did  not  stop  at  politics,  nor 
at  carrying  through  the  reforms  he  had  at  heart.  He 
attended  with  equal  keenness  and  solicitude  to  ex 
ternal  improvements. 

Now  at  first,  as  I  have  suggested,  his  chief  duty 
was  to  continue  President  McKinley's  policies, 
which  concerned  mostly  the  establishment  of  our 
insular  dependencies,  and  the  readjustment  of  our 
diplomatic  relations.  I  have  described  how  he  closed 
the  dispute  over  the  Alaskan  Boundary,  over  our 
joint  control  with  England  over  the  Isthmus  of  Pan 
ama,  and  how  he  circumvented  the  attempt  of  the 
Colombian  blackmailers  to  block  our  construction 
of  the  Canal. 

We  must  now  glance  at  a  matter  of  almost  equal 
importance  —  our  relations  with  Germany.  The 
German  attack  on  civilization,  which  was  openly  de 
livered  in  1914,  revealed  to  the  world  that  for  twenty 
years  before  the  German  Emperor  had  been  secretly 
preparing  his  mad  project  of  Universal  Conquest. 
We  see  now  that  he  used  all  sorts  of  base  tools — • 
German  exchange  professors,  spies,  bribers,  conven 
tional  insinuators  and  corrupters,  organizers  of  pro- 
German  sentiment,  and  of  societies  of  German- 
Americans.  So  little  did  he  and  his  lackeys  under- 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    217 

stand  the  American  spirit  that  they  assumed  that 
at  the  given  signal  the  people  of  the  United  States 
would  gladly  go  over  to  them.  He  counted  on  se 
curing  North  and  South  America  by  commerce  and 
corruption,  and  not  by  armed  force.  The  reaffirm- 
ation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  President  Cleve- 
land  in  1895  seriously  troubled  him;  for  he  contem 
plated  planting  German  colonies  in  Central  and 
South  America  without  resistance,  but  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  in  its  latest  interpretation  forbade  him  or 
any  foreign  government  from  establishing  domin 
ion  in  either  American  continent.  Still,  two  things 
comforted  him :  the  Americans  were,  he  thought,  a 
loose,  happy-go-lucky  people,  without  any  consecu 
tive  or  deep-laid  policy,  as  foolish  republicans  must 
be;  and  next,  he  knew  that  he  had  the  most  pow 
erful  army  in  the  world,  which,  if  put  to  the  test, 
would  crush  the  undisciplined  American  militia  at 
the  first  onset.  He  adopted,  therefore,  a  double 
policy:  he  pretended  openly  to  be  most  friendly  to 
the  Americans;  he  flattered  all  of  them  whom  he 
could  reach  in  Berlin,  and  he  directed  an  effusive 
propaganda  in  the  United  States.  In  secret,  how 
ever,  he  lost  no  occasion  to  harm  this  country. 
When  the  Spanish  War  came  in  1898,  he  tried  to 
form  a  naval  coalition  of  his  fleet  with  those  of 
France  and  England,  and  it  was  only  the  refusal  of 


2i8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

England  to  join  in  it  which  saved  this  country  from 
disaster.  The  United  States  owe  Mr.  Balfour,  who 
at  that  time  controlled  the  British  Foreign  Office, 
an  eternal  debt  of  gratitude,  because  it  was  he  who 
replied  to  the  Kaiser's  secret  temptation:  "No:  if 
the  British  fleet  takes  any  part  in  this  war,  it  will  be 
to  put  itself  between  the  American  fleet  and  those 
of  your  coalition." 

The  Kaiser  expressed  his  real  sentiment  towards 
the  United  States  in  a  remark  which  he  made  later, 
not  expecting  that  it  would  reach  American  ears. 
"  If  I  had  had  ships  enough,"  he  said,  "  I  would  have 
taken  the  Americans  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck."  As 
it  was,  he  showed  his  purpose  to  those  who  had  eyes 
to  see  it,  by  ordering  the  German  Squadron  under 
Diederichs  to  go  to  Manila  and  take  what  he  could 
there.  Fortunately  before  he  could  take  Manila  or 
the  Philippines  he  had  to  take  the  American  Com 
modore,  George  Dewey,  and  when  he  discovered 
what  sort  of  a  sea-fighter  the  mountains  of  Vermont 
had  produced  in  Dewey,  he  decided  not  to  attack 
him.  Perhaps  also  the  fact  that  the  English  com 
mander  at  Manila,  Captain  Chichester,  stood  ready 
to  back  up  Dewey  caused  Diederichs  to  back  down. 
The  true  Prussian  truculence  always  oozes  out  when 
it  has  not  a  safe  margin  of  superiority  in  strength 
on  its  side. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    219 

The  Kaiser  was  not  to  be  foiled,  however,  in  his 
determination  to  get  a  foothold  in  America.  As  the 
likelihood  that  the  Panama  Canal  would  be  con 
structed  became  a  certainty,  he  redoubled  his  efforts. 
He  tried  to  buy  from  a  Mexican  Land  Company  two 
large  ports  in  Lower  California  for  "his  personal 
use."  These  would  have  given  him,  of  course,  con 
trol  over  the  approach  to  the  Canal  from  the  Pacific. 
Simultaneously  he  sent  a  surveying  expedition  to 
the  Caribbean  Sea,  which  found  a  spacious  harbor, 
that  might  serve  as  a  naval  base,  on  an  unoccupied 
island  near  the  main  line  of  vessels  approaching  the 
Canal  from  the  east,  but  before  he  could  plant  a 
force  there,  the  presence  of  his  surveyors  was  dis 
covered,  and  they  sailed  away. 

He  now  resorted  to  a  more  cunning  ruse.  The  peo 
ple  of  Venezuela  owed  considerable  sums  to  mer 
chants  and  bankers  in  Germany,  England,  and  Italy, 
and  the  creditors  could  recover  neither  their  capital 
nor  the  interest  on  it.  The  Kaiser  bethought  him 
self  of  the  simple  plan  of  making  a  naval  demonstra 
tion  against  the  Venezuelans  if  they  did  not  pay  up ; 
he  would  send  his  troops  ashore,  occupy  the  chief 
harbors,  and  take  in  the  customs.  To  disguise  his 
ulterior  motive,  he  persuaded  England  and  Italy  to 
join  him  in  collecting  their  bill  against  Venezuela. 
So  warships  of  the  three  nations  appeared  off  the 


220  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Venezuelan  coast,  and  for  some  time  they  main 
tained  what  they  called  ''A  peaceful  blockade." 
After  a  while  Secretary  Hay  pointed  out  that  there 
could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  peaceful  blockade;  that 
a  blockade  was,  by  its  very  nature,  an  act  of  war; 
accordingly  the  blockaders  declared  a  state  of  bel 
ligerency  between  themselves  and  Venezuela,  and 
Germany  threatened  to  bombard  the  seacoast  towns 
unless  the  debt  was  settled  without  further  delay. 
President  Roosevelt  had  no  illusions  as  to  what 
bombardment  and  occupation  by  German  troops 
would  mean.  If  a  regiment  or  two  of  Germans 
once  went  into  garrison  at  Caracas  or  Porto  Cabello, 
the  Kaiser  would  secure  the  foothold  he  craved  on 
the  American  Coast  within  striking  distance  of 
the  projected  Canal,  and  Venezuela,  unable  to  ward 
off  his  aggression,  would  certainly  be  helpless  to 
drive  him  out.  Mr.  Roosevelt  allowed  Mr.  Herbert 
W.  Bowen,  the  American  Minister  to  Venezuela, 
to  serve  as  Special  Commissioner  for  Venezuela  in 
conducting  her  negotiations  with  Germany.  He, 
himself,  however,  took  the  matter  into  his  own 
hands  at  Washington.  Having  sounded  England 
and  Italy,  and  learned  that  they  were  willing  to 
arbitrate,  and  knowing  also  that  neither  of  them 
schemed  to  take  territorial  payment  for  their  bills, 
he  directed  his  diplomatic  attack  straight  at  the 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    221 

Kaiser.  When  the  German  Ambassador,  Dr.  von 
Holleben,  one  of  the  pompous  and  ponderous  pro 
fessorial  sort  of  German  officials,  was  calling  on  him 
at  the  White  House,  the  President  told  him  to  warn 
the  Kaiser  that  unless  he  consented,  within  a  given 
time  —  about  ten  days  —  to  arbitrate  the  Venezue 
lan  dispute,  the  American  fleet  under  Admiral  Dewey 
would  appear  off  the  Venezuelan  coast  and  defend  it 
from  any  attack  which  the  German  Squadron  might 
attempt  to  make.  Holleben  displayed  consterna 
tion;  he  protested  that  since  his  Imperial  Master  had 
refused  to  arbitrate,  there  could  be  no  arbitration. 
His  Imperial  Master  could  not  change  his  Imperial 
Mind,  and  the  dutiful  servant  asked  the  President 
whether  he  realized  what  such  a  demand  meant.  The 
President  replied  calmly  that  he  knew  it  meant  war. 
A  week  passed,  but  brought  no  reply  from  Berlin; 
then  Holleben  called  again  at  the  White  House  on 
some  unimportant  matters;  as  he  turned  to  go  the 
President  inquired,  "Have  you  heard  from  Berlin?" 
"No,"  said  Holleben.  "Of  course  His  Imperial  Maj 
esty  cannot  arbitrate."  "Very  well, "  said  Roosevelt, 
"you  may  think  it  worth  while  to  cable  to  Berlin 
that  I  have  changed  my  mind.  I  am  sending  instruc 
tions  to  Admiral  Dewey  to  take  our  fleet  to  Vene 
zuela  next  Monday  instead  of  Tuesday."  Holleben 
brought  the  interview  to  a  close  at  once  and  departed 


222  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

with  evident  signs  of  alarm.  He  returned  in  less  than 
thirty-six  hours  with  relief  and  satisfaction  written 
on  his  face,  as  he  informed  the  President,  "  His  Im 
perial  Majesty  consents  to  arbitrate." 

In  order  to  screen  the  Kaiser's  mortification  from 
the  world,  Roosevelt  declared  that  his  transaction  — 
which  only  he,  the  Kaiser,  and  Holleben  knew  about 
—  should  not  be  made  public  at  the  time;  and  he 
even  went  so  far,  a  little  later,  in  speaking  on  the 
matter  as  to  refer  to  the  German  Emperor  as  a  good 
friend  and  practicer  of  arbitration. 

Many  years  later,  when  Roosevelt  and  I  discussed 
this  episode  we  cast  about  for  reasons  to  account 
for  the  Kaiser's  sudden  back-down.  We  concluded 
that  after  the  first  interview  Holleben  either  did  not 
cable  to  Berlin  at  all,  or  he  gave  the  message  with 
his  own  comment  that  it  was  all  a  bluff.  After  the 
second  interview,  he  consulted  Buenz,  the  German 
Consul-General  at  New  York,  who  knew  Roosevelt 
well  and  knew  also  the  powerfulness  of  Dewey's 
fleet.  He  assured  Holleben  that  the  President  was  not 
bluffing,  and  that  Dewey  could  blow  all  the  German 
Navy,  then  in  existence,  out  of  the  water  in  half  an 
hour.  So  Holleben  sent  a  hot  cablegram  to  Berlin,  and 
Berlin  understood  that  only  an  immediate  answer 
would  do. 

Poor,  servile,  old  bureaucrat  Holleben!  The  Kaiser 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    223 

soon  treated  him  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  treating 
any  of  his  servile  creatures,  high  or  low,  who  made  a 
fiasco.  Deceived  by  the  glowing  reports  which  his 
agents  in  the  United  States  sent  to  him,  the  Kaiser 
believed  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  a  visit  by  a  Hohen- 
zollern,  to  let  off  the  pent-up  enthusiasm  of  the  Ger 
man-Americans  and  to  stimulate  the  pro-German 
conspiracy  here.  Accordingly  Prince  Henry  of  Prus 
sia  came  over  and  made  a  whirlwind  trip,  as  far  as 
Chicago;  but  it  was  in  no  sense  a  royal  progress. 
Multitudes  flocked  to  see  him  out  of  curiosity,  but 
Prince  Henry  realized,  and  so  did  the  German  kin 
here,  that  his  mission  had  failed.  A  scapegoat  must 
be  found,  and  apparently  Holleben  was  the  chosen 
victim. 

The  Kaiser  cabled  him  to  resign  and  take  the  next 
day's  steamer  home,  alleging  "chronic  illness"  as  an 
excuse.  He  sailed  from  Hoboken  obediently,  and 
there  were  none  so  poor  as  to  do  him  reverence.  The 
sycophants  who  had  fawned  upon  him  while  he  was 
enjoying  the  Imperial  favor  as  Ambassador  took 
care  not  to  be  seen  waving  a  farewell  to  him  from  the 
pier.  Instead  of  that,  they  were  busy  telling  over  his 
blunders.  He  had  served  French  instead  of  German 
champagne  at  a  banquet  for  Prince  Henry,  and  he  had 
allowed  the  Kaiser's  yacht  to  be  christened  in  French 
champagne.  How  could  such  a  blunderer  satisfy  the 


224  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

^  \  diplomatic  requirements  of  the  vain  and  petty  Kai 
ser?  And  yet!  Holleben  was  utterly  devoted  and 
willing  to  grovel  in  the  mud.  He  even  suggested  to 
President  Roosevelt  that  at  the  State  Banquet  at  the 
White  House,  Prince  Henry,  as  a  Hohenzollern,  and 
the  representative  of  the  Almightiest  Kaiser,  should 
walk  out  to  dinner  first;  but  there  was  no  discussion, 
for  the  President  replied  curtly,  "No  person  living 
precedes  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  the 
White  House." 

Henceforth  the  Kaiser  understood  that  the  United 
States  Government,  at  least  as  long  as  Roosevelt 
was  President,  would  repel  any  attempt  by  foreign 
ers  to  violate  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  set  up  a  nu 
cleus  of  foreign  power  in  either  North  or  South  Amer 
ica.  He  devoted  himself  all  the  more  earnestly  to 
pushing  the  sly  work  of  peaceful  penetration,  that 
work  of  spying  and  lying  in  which  the  German  peo 
ple  proved  itself  easily  first.  The  diabolical  propa 
ganda,  aimed  not  only  at  undermining  the  United 
States,  at  seducing  the  Irish  and  other  hyphenate 
groups  of  Americans,  but  at  polluting  the  Mexicans 
and  several  of  the  South  American  States ;  and  later 
there  was  a  thoroughly  organized  conspiracy  to  stir 
up  animosity  between  this  country  and  Japan  by 
making  the  Japanese  hate  and  suspect  the  Americans, 
and  by  making  the  Americans  hate  and  suspect  the 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    225 

Japanese.  I  alluded  just  now  to  the  fact  that  German 
intrigue  was  working  in  Bogota,  and  influenced  the 
Colombian  blackmailers  in  refusing  to  sign  the  Hay- 
Herran  Canal  Treaty  with  the  United  States,  and 
peered  about  in  the  hope  of  snapping  up  the  Canal 
rights  for  Germany. 

V  Outwardly,  during  the  first  decade  of  the  twen 
tieth  century,  the  Kaiser  seemed  to  be  most  active 
in  interfering  in  European  politics,  including  those 
of  Morocco,  in  which  the  French  were  entangled.  In 
1904  the  war  between  Russia  and  Japan  broke  out. 
Roosevelt  remained  strictly  neutral  towards  both 
belligerents,  making  it  evident,  however,  that  either 
or  both  of  them  could  count  on  his  friendly  offices  if 
they  sought  mediation.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
it  was  generally  assumed  that  the  German  Kaiser 
shed  no  tears  over  the  Russian  reverses,  for  the 
weaker  Russia  became,  the  less  Germany  needed  to 
fear  her  as  a  neighbor.  At  length,  however,  when  it 
looked  as  if  the  Japanese  might  actually  shatter  the 
Russian  Empire,  Germany  and  the  other  European 
Powers  seemed  to  have  had  a  common  feeling  that 
a  decided  victory  by  an  Asiatic  nation  like  Japan 
would  certainly  require  a  readjustment  of  world  poli 
tics,  and  might  not  only  put  in  jeopardy  European 
interests  and  control  in  Asia,  but  also  raise  up  against 
Europe  what  the  Kaiser  had  already  advertised  as 


226  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  Yellow  Peril.  I  have  no  evidence  that  President 
Roosevelt  shared  this  anxiety;  on  the  contrary,  I 
think  that  he  was  not  unwilling  that  a  strong  Japan 
should  exist  to  prevent  the  dismemberment  of  East 
ern  Asia  by  European  land-grabbers. 

By  the  spring  of  1905,  both  Russia  and  Japan  had 
fought  almost  to  exhaustion.  The  probability  was 
that  Russia  with  her  vast  population  could  con 
tinue  to  replenish  her  army.  Japan,  with  great  pluck, 
after  winning  amazing  victories,  which  left  her 
weaker  and  weaker,  made  no  sign  of  wishing  for  an 
armistice.  Roosevelt,  however,  on  his  own  motion 
wrote  a  private  letter  to  the  Czar,  Nicholas  II,  and 
sent  George  Meyer,  Ambassador  to  Italy,  with  it  on 
a  special  mission  to  Petrograd.  The  President  urged 
the  Czar  to  consider  making  peace,  since  both  the 
Russians  and  the  Japanese  had  nearly  fought  them 
selves  out,  and  further  warfare  would  add  to  the 
losses  and  burdens,  already  tremendous,  of  both  peo 
ple.  Probably  he  hinted  also  that  another  disaster  in 
the  field  might  cause  an  outbreak  by  the  Russian 
Revolutionists.  I  have  not  seen  his  letter  —  perhaps 
a  copy  of  it  has  escaped,  in  the  Czar's  secret  archives, 
the  violence  of  the  Bolshevists  —  but  I  have  heard 
him  speak  about  it.  I  have  reason  to  suppose  also 
that  he  wrote  privately  to  the  Kaiser  to  use  his  in 
fluence  with  the  Czar.  At  any  rate,  the  Czar  listened 


Copyright  by  I'nderwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 


WITH  THE  RUSSO-JAPANESE  PEACE  DELEGATES  ON  BOARD  THE 

PRESIDENTIAL  YACHT  MAYFLOWER,  AUGUST  5,  1905 

Left  to  right:  M.  Witte,  Baron  Rosen,  President  Roosevelt,  Baron  Komura, 

Minister  Takahira 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    227 

to  the  President's  advice,  and  by  one  of  those  diplo 
matic  devices  by  which  both  parties  saved  their  dig 
nity,  an  armistice  was  arranged  and,  in  the  summer 
of  1905,  the  Peace  was  signed.  The  following  year, 
the  Trustees  of  the  Nobel  Peace  Prize  recognized 
Roosevelt's  large  part  in  stopping  the  war,  by  giving 
the  Prize  to  him. 

Meanwhile,  the  irritation  between  France  and 
Germany  had  increased  to  the  point  where  open  rup 
ture  was  feared.  For  years  Germany  had  been  wait-  C 

N 

ing  for  a  propitious  moment  to  swoop  down  on  France  ^ 
and  overwhelm  her.  The  French  intrigues  in  Mo- 
rocco,  which  were  leading  visibly  to  a  French  Pro- 
tectorate  over  that  country,  aroused  German  resent- 
ment,  for  the  Germans  coveted  Morocco  themselves. 
The  Kaiser  wrent  so  far  as  to  invite  Roosevelt  to  in- 
terfere  with  him  in  Morocco,  but  this,  the  President 
replied,  was  impossible.  Probably  he  was  not  un 
willing  to  have  the  German  Emperor  understand 
that,  while  the  United  States  would  interfere  with 
all  their  might  to  prevent  a  foreign  attack  on  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  they  meant  to  keep  their  hands 
off  in  European  quarrels.  That  he  also  had  a  clear 
idea  of  William  II's  temperament  appears  from  the 
following  opinion  which  I  find  in  a  private  letter 
of  his  at  this  time:  "The  Kaiser  had  weekly  pipe 
dreams." 


228  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

The  situation  grew  very  angry,  and  von  Billow, 
the  German  Chancellor,  did  not  hide  his  purpose  of 
upholding  the  German  pretensions,  even  at  the  cost 
of  war.  President  Roosevelt  then  wrote  —  privately 
—  to  the  Kaiser  impressing  it  upon  him  that  for 
Germany  to  make  war  on  France  would  be  a  crime 
against  civilization,  and  he  suggested  that  a  Confer 
ence  of  Powers  be  held  to  discuss  the  Moroccan  diffi 
culty,  and  to  agree  upon  terms  for  a  peaceful  ad 
justment.  The  Kaiser  finally  accepted  Roosevelt's 
advice,  and  after  a  long  debate  over  the  prelimina 
ries,  the  Conference  was  held  at  Algeciras,  Spain. 

That  Roosevelt  understood,  or  even  suspected,  the 
great  German  conspiracy  which  the  Kaiser's  hire 
lings  were  weaving  over  the  United  States  is  wholly 
improbable.  Had  he  known  of  any  plot  he  would 
have  been  the  first  to  hunt  it  down  and  crush  it.  He 
knew  in  general  of  the  extravagant  vaporings  of  the 
Pan-Germans;  but,  like  most  of  us,  he  supposed  that 
there  was  still  enough  sanity,  not  to  say  common 
sense,  left  in  Germany  to  laugh  such  follies  away. 
Through  his  intimate  friend,  Spring-Rice,  subse 
quently  the  British  Ambassador,  he  had  early  and 
sound  information  of  the  conditions  of  Germany.  He 
watched  with  curiosity  the  abnormal  expansion  of 
the  German  Fleet.  All  these  things  simply  confirmed 
his  belief  that  the  United  States  must  attend  seri- 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  KAISER    229 

ously  to  the  business  of  making  military  and  naval 
preparations. 

Secretary  Hay  had  already  secured  the  recogni 
tion  by  the  European  Powers  of  the  policy  of  the 
Open  Door  in  China,  the  year  before  Roosevelt  be 
came  President,  but  the  struggle  to  maintain  that 
policy  had  to  be  kept  up  for  several  years.  On  Novem 
ber  21,  1900,  John  Hay  wrote  to  Henry  Adams:  "At 
least  we  are  spared  the  infamy  of  an  alliance  with 
Germany.  I  would  rather,  I  think,  be  the  dupe  of 
China,  than  chum  of  the  Kaiser.  Have  you  noticed 
how  the  world  will  take  anything  nowadays  from 
a  German?  Billow  said  yesterday  in  substance  - 
'We  have  demanded  of  China  everything  we  can 
think  of.  If  we  think  of  anything  else  we  will  demand 

that,  and  be  d d  to  you '  —  and  not  a  man  in  the 

world  kicks."  1 

By  an  adroit  move  similar  to  that  by  which  Hay 
had  secured  the  unwilling  adherence  of  the  Powers 
to  his  original  proposal  of  the  Open  Door,  he,  with 
Roosevelt's  sanction,  prevented  the  German  Em 
peror  from  carrying  out  a  plan  to  cut  up  China  and 
divide  the  slices  among  the  Europeans. 

Equally  adroit  was  Roosevelt's  method  of  dealing 
with  the  Czar  in  1903.  Russian  mobs  ran  amuck  and 
massacred  many  Jews  in  the  city  of  Kishineff.  The 

1  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  n,  248. 


230  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

news  of  this  atrocity  reached  the  outside  world 
slowly:  when  it  came,  the  Jews  of  western  Europe, 
and  especially  those  of  the  United  States,  cried  out 
in  horror,  held  meetings,  drew  up  protests,  and  framed 
petitions,  asking  the  Czar  to  punish  the  criminals. 
Leading  American  Jews  besought  Roosevelt  to  plead 
their  cause  before  the  Czar.  As  it  was  well  known 
that  the  Czar  would  refuse  to  receive  such  petitions, 
and  would  regard  himself  as  insulted  by  whatever 
nation  should  lay  them  before  him  by  official  dip 
lomatic  means,  the  world  wondered  what  Roose 
velt  would  do.  He  took  one  of  his  short  cuts,  and 
chose  a  way  which  everybody  saw  was  most  obvious 
and  most  simple,  as  soon  as  he  had  chosen  it.  He 
sent  the  petitions  to  our  Ambassador  at  Petrograd, 
accompanying  them  with  a  letter  which  recited  the 
atrocities  and  grievances.  In  this  letter,  which  was 
handed  to  the  Russian  Secretary  of  State,  our  Gov 
ernment  asked  whether  His  Majesty  the  Czar  would 
condescend  to  receive  the  petitions.  Of  course  the 
reply  was  no,  but  the  letter  was  published  in  all 
countries,  so  that  the  Czar  also  knew  of  the  peti 
tions,  and  of  the  horrors  which  called  them  out.  In 
this  fashion  the  former  Ranchman  and  Rough  Rider 
outwitted,  by  what  I  may  call  his  straightforward 
guile,  the  crafty  diplomats  of  the  Romanoffs. 


I 


CHAPTER  XV 

ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS 

N  a  previous  chapter  I  glanced  at  three  or  four 
of  the  principal  measures  in  internal  policy  which 
Roosevelt  took  up  and  fought  through,  until  he 
finally  saw  them  passed  by  Congress.  No  other  Pres 
ident,  as  has  been  often  remarked,  kept  Congress  so 
busy;  and,  we  may  add,  none  of  his  predecessors  (un 
less  it  were  Lincoln  with  the  legislation  required  by 
the  Civil  War)  put  so  many  new  laws  on  the  national 
statute  book.  Mr.  Charles  G.  Washburn  enumerates 
these  acts  credited  to  Roosevelt's  seven  and  a  half 
years'  administration : ' '  The  Elkins  Anti-Rebate  Law 
applying  to  railroads;  the  creation  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  Commerce  and  Labor  and  the  Bureau  of 
Corporations;  the  law  authorizing  the  building  of 
the  Panama  Canal ;  the  Hepburn  Bill  amending  and 
vitalizing  the  Interstate  Commerce  Act;  the  Pure 
Food  and  Meat  Inspection  laws;  the  law  creating  the 
Bureau  of  Immigration;  the  Employers'  Liability 
and  Safety  Appliance  Laws,  that  limited  the  working 
hours  of  employees ;  the  law  making  the  Government 
liable  for  injuries  to  its  employees;  the  law  forbidding 
child  labor  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  thereforma- 


232  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

tion  of  the  Consular  Service;  prohibition  of  cam 
paign  contributions  from  corporations;  the  Emer 
gency  Currency  Law,  which  also  provided  for  the 
creation  of  the  Monetary  Commission."  1 

Although  the  list  is  by  no  means  complete,  it 
shows  that  Roosevelt's  receptive  and  sleepless  mind 
fastened  on  the  full  circle  of  questions  which  inter 
ested  American  life,  so  far  as  that  is  controlled  or 
directed  by  national  legislation.  Some  of  the  laws 
passed  were  simply  readjustments  —  new  statutes 
on  old  matters.  Other  laws  were  new,  embodying  the 
first  attempt  to  define  the  attitude  which  the  courts 
should  hold  towards  new  questions  which  had  grown 
suddenly  into  great  importance.  The  decade  which 
had  favored  the  springing-up  and  amazing  expan 
sion  of  the  Big  Interests,  had  to  be  followed  by  the 
decade  which  framed  legislation  for  regulating  and 
curbing  these  interests.  Quite  naturally,  the  monop 
olists  affected  did  not  like  to  be  harnessed  or  con 
trolled,  and,  to  put  it  mildly,  they  resented  the  inter 
ference  of  the  formidable  young  President  whom 
they  could  neither  frighten,  inveigle,  nor  cajole. 

And  yet  it  is  as  evident  to  all  Americans  now,  as  it 
was  to  some  Americans  at  the  time,  that  that  legis 
lation  had  to  be  passed;  because  if  the  monopolists 
had  been  allowed  to  go  on  unrestrained,  they  would 

1  C.  G.  Washburn,  128,  129. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  233 

either  have  perverted  this  Republic  into  an  open  Plu 
tocracy,  in  which  individual  liberty  and  equality  be 
fore  the  law  would  have  disappeared,  or  they  would 
have  hurried  on  the  Social  Revolution,  the  Arma 
geddon  of  Labor  and  Capital,  the  merciless  conflict 
of  class  with  class,  which  many  persons  already 
vaguely  dreaded,  or  thought  they  saw  looming  like  an 
ominous  cloud  on  the  horizon.  It  seems  astounding 
that  any  one  should  have  questioned  the  necessity  of 
setting  up  regulations.  And  will  not  posterity  won 
der,  when  it  learns  that  only  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
twentieth  century  did  we  provide  laws  against  the 
cruel  and  killing  labor  of  little  children,  and  against 
impure  foods  and  drugs? 

Year  after  year,  the  railroads  furnished  unending 
causes  for  legislative  control.  There  were  the  old 
laws  which  the  railroad  men  tried  to  evade  and  which 
the  President,  as  was  his  duty,  insisted  on  enforcing; 
and  still  more  insistent  and  spectacular  were  the  new 
problems.  Just  as  three  or  four  hundred  years  ago  the 
most  active  and  vigorous  Frenchmen  and  English 
men  tried  to  get  possession  of  large  tracts  of  land,  or 
even  of  provinces,  and  became  counts  and  dukes, 
so  the  Americans  of  our  generation,  who  aspired  to 
lead  the  pushing  financier  class,  worked  day  and 
night  to  own  a  railroad.  Naturally  one  railroad  did 
not  satisfy  a  man  who  was  bitten  by  this  ambition; 


234  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  reached  out  for  several,  or  even  for  a  transconti 
nental  system.  The  war  for  railroad  ownership  or  mo 
nopoly  was  waged  intensely,  and  in  1901  it  nearly 
plunged  the  country  into  a  disastrous  financial  panic. 
Edward  H.  Harriman,  who  had  only  recently  been 
regarded  as  a  great  power  in  the  struggle  for  railroad 
supremacy,  clashed  with  James  J.  Hill,  of  Minnesota, 
and  J.  P.  Morgan,  a  New  York  banker,  over  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad.  Their  battle  was  nomi 
nally  a  draw,  because  Wall  Street  rushed  in  and,  to 
avert  a  nation-wide  calamity,  demanded  a  truce. 
But  Harriman  remained,  until  his  death  in  1909,  the 
railroad  czar  of  the  United  States,  and  when  he  died, 
he  was  master  of  twenty- five  thousand  miles  of  road, 
chief  influencer  of  fifty  thousand  more  miles,  besides 
steamboat  companies,  banks,  and  other  financial  in 
stitutions.  He  controlled  more  money  than  any  other 
American.  I  summarize  these  statistics,  in  order  to 
show  the  reader  what  sort  of  a  Colossus  the  President 
of  the  United  States  had  to  do  battle  with  when  he  un 
dertook  to  secure  new  laws  adequate  to  the  control 
of  the  enormously  expanded  railway  problems.  And 
he  did  succeed,  in  large  measure,  in  bringing  the  giant 
corporations  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the  Na 
tion.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  North 
ern  Securities  case,  by  which  the  merger  of  two  or 
more  competing  roads  was  declared  illegal,  put  a 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  235 

stop  to  the  practice  of  consolidation,  which  might 
have  resulted  in  the  ownership  of  all  the  railroads  in 
the  United  States  by  a  single  person.  Then  followed 
the  process  of  "unscrambling  the  omelet,"  to  use 
J.  P.  Morgan's  phrase,  in  order  to  bring  the  com 
panies  already  illegally  merged  within  the  letter  of  the 
law.  Probably  a  lynx-eyed  investigator  might  dis 
cover  that  in  some  of  the  efforts  to  legalize  opera 
tions  in  the  future,  "the  voice  was  Jacob's,  but  the 
hands  were  the  hands  of  Esau." 

The  laws  aimed  at  regulating  transportation, 
rates,  and  rebates,  certainly  made  for  justice,  and 
helped  to  enlighten  great  corporations  as  to  their 
place  in  the  community  and  their  duties  towards 
it.  Roosevelt  showed  that  his  fearlessness  had  ap 
parently  no  bounds,  when  in  1907  he  caused  suit  to 
be  brought  against  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in 
Indiana  —  a  branch  of  a  monopoly  which  was  popu 
larly  supposed  to  be  above  the  law  —  for  receiving 
a  rebate  from  a  railroad  on  the  petroleum  shipped 
by  the  Company.  The  judge  who  tried  the  case  gave 
a  verdict  in  favor  of  the  Government,  but  another 
judge,  to  whom  appeal  was  made,  reversed  the  deci 
sion,  and  finally  at  a  re-trial,  a  third  judge  dismissed 
the  indictment.  "Thus,"  says  Mr.  Ogg,  "a  good 
case  was  lost  through  judicial  blundering."  x 

1  Ogg,  50. 


236  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

But  the  greatest  of  Roosevelt's  works  as  a  legis 
lator  were  those  which  he  carried  through  in  the 
fields  of  conservation  and  reclamation.  He  did  not 
invent  these  issues ;  he  was  only  one  of  many  persons 
who  understood  their  vast  importance.  He  gives  full 
credit  to  Mr.  Gifford  Pinchot  and  Mr.  F.  H.  Newell, 
who  first  laid  these  subjects  before  him  as  matters 
which  he  as  President  ought  to  consider.  He  had 
himself  during  his  days  in  the  West  seen  the  need  of 
irrigating  the  waste  tracts.  He  was  a  quick  and  will 
ing  learner,  and  in  his  first  message  to  Congress 
(December  i,  1901)  he  remarked:  "The  forest  and 
water  problems  are  perhaps  the  most  vital  internal 
problems  of  the  United  States."  Years  later,  in  re 
ferring  to  this  part  of  his  work,  he  said: 

The  idea  that  our  natural  resources  were  inexhaustible  still 
obtained,  and  there  was  as  yet  no  real  knowledge  of  their  ex 
tent  and  condition.  The  relation  of  the  conservation  of  na 
tional  resources  to  the  problems  of  national  welfare  and  na 
tional  efficiency  had  not  yet  dawned  on  the  public  mind.  The 
reclamation  of  arid  public  lands  in  the  West  was  still  a  matter 
for  private  enterprise  alone ;  and  our  magnificent  river  system, 
with  its  superb  possibilities  for  public  usefulness,  was  dealt 
with  by  the  National  Government  not  as  a  unit,  but  as  a  dis 
connected  series  of  pork-barrel  problems,  whose  only  real 
interest  was  in  their  effect  on  the  reelection  or  defeat  of  a 
Congressman  here  and  there  —  a  theory  which,  I  regret  to 
say,  still  obtains.1 

1  Autobiography,  p.  430. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  237 

The  public  lands  saved  mounted  to  millions  of 
acres.  The  long-standing  practice  of  stealing  these 
lands  was  checked  and  put  a  stop  to  as  rapidly  as 
possible.  Individuals  and  private  companies  had 
bought  for  a  song  great  tracts  of  national  property, 
getting  thereby,  it  might  be,  the  title  to  mineral  de 
posits  worth  fabulous  sums ;  and  these  persons  were 
naturally  angry  at  being  deprived  of  the  immense 
fortunes  which  they  had  counted  on  for  themselves. 
A  company  would  buy  up  an  entire  watershed, 
and  control,  for  its  private  profit,  the 'water-sup 
ply  of  a  region.  Roosevelt  insisted  with  indisput 
able  logic  that  the  States  and  Counties  ought  them 
selves  to  own  such  natural  resources  and  derive  an 
income  from  them.  So,  too,  were  the  areas  restored 
to  man's  habitation,  and  to  agriculture,  by  irriga 
tion,  and  by  reforesting.  A  company,  having  no 
object  but  its  own  enrichment,  would  ruthlessly  cut 
down  a  thousand  square  miles  of  timber  in  order  to 
convert  it  into  wood  pulp  for  paper,  or  into  lumber 
for  building;  and  the  region  thus  devastated,  as  if  a 
German  army  had  been  over  it,  would  be  left  with 
out  regard  to  the  effect  on  the  climate  and  the  water- 
supply  of  the  surrounding  country.  Surely  this  was 
wrong. 

It  seems  to  me  as  needless  now  to  argue  in  behalf 
of  Roosevelt's  legislation  for  the  conservation  of 


238  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

national  resources  as  to  argue  against  cannibalism 
as  a  practice  fit  for  civilized  men.  That  lawyers  of 
repute  and  Congressmen  of  reputation  should  have 
done  their  utmost,  as  late  as  1906,  to  obstruct  and 
defeat  the  passage  of  the  Meat  Inspection  Bill  must 
seem  incredible  to  persons  of  average  sanity  and  con 
science.  If  any  of  those  obstructionists  still  live,  they 
do  not  boast  of  their  performance,  nor  is  it  likely 
that  their  children  will  exult  over  this  part  of  the 
paternal  record. 

In  order  not  to  exaggerate  Roosevelt's  importance 
in  these  fundamental  reforms,  I  would  repeat  that 
he  did  not  originate  the  idea  of  many  of  them.  He 
gladly  took  his  cue  for  conservation  from  Gifford  Pin- 
chot,  and  for  reclamation  from  F.  H.  Newell,  as  I 
have  said ;  the  need  of  inspecting  the  packing-houses 
which  exported  meat,  from  Senator  A.  J.  Beveridge, 
and  so  on.  The  vital  fact  is  that  these  projects  got  form 
and  vigor  and  publicity,  and  were  pushed  through 
Congress,  only  after  Roosevelt  took  them  up.  His 
opponents,  the  packers,  the  land-robbers,  the  mine- 
grabbers,  the  wood-pulp  pirates,  fought  him  at  every 
point.  They  appealed  to  the  old  law  to  discredit  and 
damn  the  new.  They  gave  him  no  quarter,  and  he 
asked  for  none  because  he  was  bent  on  securing  jus 
tice,  irrespective  of  persons  or  private  interests.  It 
followed,  of  course,  that  they  watched  eagerly  for 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  239 

any  slip  which  might  wreck  him,  and  they  thought 
they  had  found  their  chance  in  1907. 

That  was  a  year  of  financial  upheaval,  almost  of 
panic,  the  blame  for  which  the  Big  Interests  tried  to 
fasten  on  the  President.  It  resulted,  they  said,  from 
his  attack  on  Capital  and  the  Corporations.  A  special 
incident  gave  plausibility  to  some  of  their  bitter 
criticism.  Messrs.  Gary  and  Frick,  of  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  called  on  the  President, 
and  told  him  that  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Com 
pany  was  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy,  and  that,  if  it 
went  under,  a  general  panic  would  probably  ensue. 
To  prevent  this  financial  disaster,  their  Corporation 
was  willing  to  buy  up  enough  of  the  Tennessee  Com 
pany  to  save  it,  but  they  wished  to  know  whether 
the  President  would  allow  the  purchase.  He  told 
them  that  he  could  not  officially  advise  them  to  take 
the  action  proposed,  but  that  he  did  not  regard  it 
as  a  public  duty  of  his  to  raise  any  objection.  They 
made  the  purchase,  and  the  total  amount  of  their 
holdings  in  the  Tennessee  Company  did  not  equal 
in  value  what  they  had  originally  held,  for  the  stock 
had  greatly  shrunk.  The  Attorney-General  subse 
quently  informed  the  President  that  he  saw  no  reason 
to  prosecute  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation. 
But  the  President's  enemies  did  not  spare  their  criti 
cism.  They  circulated  grave  suspicions;  they  hinted 


240  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

that,  if  the  whole  truth  were  known,  Roosevelt 
would  be  embarrassed,  to  say  the  least.  What  had 
become  of  his  pretended  impartiality  when  he  al 
lowed  one  of  the  great  Trusts  to  do,  with  impunity, 
that  which  others  were  prosecuted  for?  The  public, 
which  seldom  has  the  knowledge,  or  the  information, 
necessary  for  understanding  business  or  financial 
complexities,  usually  remarks,  with  the  archaic  sa 
pience  of  a  Greek  chorus,  "  There  must  be  some 
fire  where  there  is  so  much  smoke."  But  the  pub 
lic  interest  was  never  seriously  roused  over  the 
Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  affair,  and,  six  years 
later,  when  a  United  States  District  Court  handed 
down  a  verdict  in  which  this  matter  was  referred 
to,  the  public  had  almost  forgotten  what  it  was  all 
about. 

The  great  result  from  Roosevelt's  battle  for  con 
servation,  which  I  believe  will  glorify  him,  in  the 
future,  to  heroic  proportions  as  a  statesman,  is  that 
where  he  found  wide  stretches  of  desert  he  left  fertile 
States,  that  he  saved  from  destruction,  that  he  seized 
from  the  hands  of  the  spoilers  rivers  and  valleys 
which  belonged  to  the  people,  and  that  he  kept  for 
the  people  mineral  lands  of  untold  value.  Nor  did  he 
work  for  material  and  sanitary  prosperity  alone; 
but  he  worked  also  for  Beauty.  He  reserved  as  Na 
tional  Parks  for  the  use  and  delight  of  men  and 


ROOSEVELT  AND  CONGRESS  241 

women  forever  some  of  the  most  beautiful  regions 
in  the  United  States,  and  the  support  he  gave  to 
these  causes  urged  them  forward  after  he  ceased  to 
be  President. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION 

HAVING  seen  briefly  how  President  Roosevelt 
dealt  with  Capital,  let  us  look  even  more 
briefly  at  his  dealings  with  Labor.  I  think  that  he 
took  the  deepest  personal  satisfaction  in  fighting  the 
criminal  rich  and  the  soulless  corporations,  because 
he  regarded  them  not  only  as  lawbreakers,  malefac 
tors  of  great  wealth,  but  as  despicably  mean,  in  that 
they  used  their  power  to  oppress  the  poor  and  help 
less  classes.  The  Labor  groups  when  they  burst  out 
into  violence  merely  responded  to  the  passion  which 
men  naturally  feel  at  injustice  and  at  suffering;  to 
their  violence  they  did  not  add  slyness  or  legal  de 
ceits.  But  Roosevelt  had  no  toleration  for  the  Labor 
demagogue,  for  the  walking  delegate,  and  all  similar 
parasites,  who  preyed  upon  the  working  classes  for 
their  own  profit,  and  fomented  the  irritation  of 
Labor  and  Capital. 

Stronger,  however,  than  his  sympathy  for  any 
individual,  and  especially  for  those  who  suffered 
without  redress,  was  his  love  of  justice.  This  he  put 
in  a  phrase  which  he  invented  and  made  current,  a 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION         243 

phrase  which  everybody  could  understand:  "the 
labor  unions  shall  have  a  square  deal,  and  the  cor 
porations  shall  have  a  square  deal."  At  another  time 
he  expressed  the  same  idea,  by  saying  that  the  rich 
man  should  have  justice,  and  that  the  poor  man 
should  have  justice,  and  that  no  man  should  have 
more  or  less. 

Time  soon  brought  a  test  for  his  devotion  to  social 
justice.  In  the  summer  of  1902  the  coal-miners  of 
Pennsylvania  stopped  working.  Early  in  September 
the  public  awoke  with  a  start  to  the  realization  that 
a  coal  famine  threatened  the  country.  In  the  Eastern 
States,  in  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  in  some 
of  the  Middle  Western  States,  a  calamity  threatened, 
which  would  be  quite  as  terrible  as  the  invasion  of 
an  enemy's  army.  For  not  only  would  lack  of  fuel 
cause  incalculable  hardship  and  distress  from  cold, 
but  it  would  stop  transportation,  and  all  manufac 
turing  by  machinery  run  by  coal.  The  mine  operators 
and  the  miners  were  at  a  deadlock.  The  President 
invited  the  leaders  on  both  sides  to  confer  with  him 
at  the  White  House.  They  came  and  found  him 
stretched  out  on  an  invalid's  chair,  with  one  of  his 
legs  much  bandaged,  from  an  accident  he  had  re 
ceived  in  a  collision  at  Pittsfield  a  few  weeks  before, 
but  his  mental  vigor  was  unsubdued.  John  Mitchell 
spoke  for  the  miners.  The  President  urged  the  quar- 


244  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

relers  to  come  to  terms.  But  the  big  coal  operators 
would  not  yield.  They  knew  that  the  distress  among 
the  mining  population  was  great,  and  they  believed 
that  if  the  authorities  would  only  maintain  peace, 
the  miners  would  soon  be  forced  to  give  in.  So  the 
meeting  broke  up  and  the  "coal  barons,'*  as  the 
newspapers  dubbed  the  operators,  quitted  with  evi 
dent  satisfaction.  They  felt  that  they  had  not  only 
repelled  the  miners  again,  but  virtually  put  down 
the  President  for  interfering  in  a  matter  in  which  he 
had  no  legal  jurisdiction. 

And,  in  truth,  the  laws  gave  the  President  of  the 
United  States  no  authority  to  play  the  role  of  arbiter 
in  a  strike.  His  plain  duty  was  to  keep  the  peace.  If 
a  strike  resulted  in  violent  disorders  he  could  send 
United  States  troops  to  quell  them,  but  only  in  case 
the  Governor  of  the  State  in  which  the  riots  occurred 
declared  himself  unable,  by  the  State  force  at  his 
command,  to  keep  the  peace,  and  requested  assist 
ance  from  the  President.  In  the  coal  strike  the  Gov 
ernor  of  Pennsylvania,  for  reasons  which  I  need  not 
discuss  here,  refused  to  call  for  United  States  troops, 
and  so  did  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature.  Roosevelt 
acted  as  a  patriotic  citizen  might  act,  but  being  the 
President,  his  interference  had  immensely  greater 
weight  than  that  of  any  private  citizen  could  have. 
He  knew  the  law  in  the  matter,  but  he  believed  that 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION         245 

the  popular  opinion  of  the  American  people  would 
back  him  up. 

In  spite  of  the  first  rebuff,  therefore,  he  persuaded 
the  miners  and  the  operators  to  agree  to  the  appoint 
ment  of  an  arbitration  commission,  and  this  sug 
gested  a  settlement  which  both  contestants  accepted. 
It  ended  the  great  coal  strike  of  1902,  but  it  left  be 
hind  it  much  indignation  among  the  American  peo 
ple,  who  realized  for  the  first  time  that  one  of  the 
three  or  four  great  industries  essential  to  the  welfare 
and  even  to  the  life  itself  of  the  Nation,  was  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  preferred  their  selfish  interests  to 
those  of  the  Nation.  It  taught  several  other  lessons 
also;  it  taught,  for  instance,  that  great  combinations 
of  Labor  may  be  as  dangerous  as  those  of  Capital, 
and  as  heedless  of  everything  except  their  own  selfish 
control.  It  taught  that  the  people  of  the  States  and 
of  the  Nation  could  not  go  on  forever  without  taking 
steps  to  put  an  end  to  the  already  dangerous  hos 
tility  between  Capital  and  Labor,  and  that  that  end 
must  be  the  establishment  of  justice  for  all.  An  apolo 
gist  of  the  "coal  barons"  might  have  pleaded  that 
they  held  out  not  merely  for  their  private  gain  on 
that  occasion,  but  in  order  to  defeat  the  growing 
menace  of  Labor.  Their  stubbornness  might  turn 
back  the  rising  flood  of  socialism. 

Respecters  of  legal  precedent,  on  the  other  hand, 


246  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

criticised  the  President.  They  acknowledged  his  good 
intentions,  but  they  pointed  out  that  his  extra-legal 
interference  set  an  ominously  bad  example.  And 
some  of  them  would  have  preferred  to  go  cold  all 
winter,  and  even  to  have  had  the  quarrel  sink  into 
civil  war,  rather  than  to  have  had  the  constitutional 
ideals  of  the  Nation  distorted  or  obscured  by  the 
President's  good-natured  endeavor.  Roosevelt  him 
self,  however,  never  held  this  opinion.  In  1915,  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Washburn:  "  I  think  the  settlement  of 
the  coal  strike  was  much  the  most  important  thing 
I  did  about  Labor,  from  every  standpoint." 

I  find  an  intimate  letter  of  his  which  dates  from 
the  time  of  the  conflict  itself  and  gives  frankly  his 
motives  and  apology,  if  we  should  call  it  that.  He 
admits  that  his  action  was  not  strictly  legal,  but  he 
asks  that,  if  the  President  of  the  United  States  may 
not  intervene  to  prevent  a  widespread  calamity, 
what  is  his  authority  worth?  If  it  had  been  a  national 
strike  of  iron- workers  or  miners,  he  would  have  held 
himself  aloof,  but  the  coal  strike  affected  a  product 
necessary  to  the  life  and  health  of  the  people.  It  was 
easy  enough  for  well-to-do  gentlemen  to  say  that 
they  had  rather  go  cold  and  see  the  fight  carried 
through  until  the  strikers  submitted,  than  to  have 
legal  precedence  ignored;  for  these  gentlemen  had 
money  enough  to  buy  fuel  at  even  an  exorbitant 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION         247 

price,  and  they  would  be  warm  anyway,  while  the 
great  mass  of  the  population  froze.  I  may  add  that 
it  seems  more  legal  than  sensible  that  any  official 
chosen  to  preserve  the  public  welfare  and  health 
should  not  be  allowed  to  interpose  against  persons 
who  would  destroy  both,  and  may  stir  only  after 
the  destroyers  have  caused  the  catastrophe  they 
aimed  at. 

Roosevelt's  action  in  the  great  coal  strike  not  only 
averted  the  danger,  but  it  also  gave  Labor  means  of 
judging  him  fairly.  Every  demagogue,  from  the  days 
of  Cleon  down,  has  talked  glibly  in  behalf  of  the 
downtrodden  or  unjustly  treated  working-men,  and 
we  might  suppose  that  the  demagogue  has  acquired 
enlargement  of  the  heart,  owing  to  his  overpowering 
sympathy  with  Labor.  But  the  questions  we  have  to 
ask  about  demagogues  are  two:  Is  he  sincere?  Is  he 
wise? 

Sincerity  alone  has  been  rather  too  much  exalted 
as  an  excuse  for  the  follies  and  crimes  of  fanatics  and 
zealots,  blatherskites  and  cranks.  Some  of  our  "lu 
natic  fringe"  of  reformers  have  been  heard  to  palli 
ate  the  Huns'  atrocities  in  Belgium,  by  the  plea :  "  Ah, 
but  they  were  so  perfectly  sincere!"  Sincerity  alone, 
therefore,  is  not  enough;  it  must  be  wise  or  it  may 
be  diabolical.  Now  Roosevelt  was  both  sincere  and 
wise.  He  left  no  doubt  in  the  strikers'  minds  that  he 


248  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

sympathized  with  their  sufferings  and  grievances 
and  with  their  attempts  to  better  their  condition, 
so  far  as  this  could  be  achieved  without  violence, 
and  without  leaving  a  permanent  state  of  war  be 
tween  Labor  and  Capital.  In  a  word,  he  did  not  aim 
at  merely  patching  up  a  temporary  peace,  but  at 
finding,  and  when  found,  applying,  a  remedy  to  the 
deep-rooted  causes  of  the  quarrel. 

In  his  first  message  to  Congress,  the  new  President 
said:  "The  most  vital  problem  with  which  this  coun 
try,  and,  for  that  matter,  the  whole  civilized  world, 
has  to  deal,  is  the  problem  which  has  for  one  side 
the  betterment  of  social  conditions,  moral  and 
physical,  in  large  cities,  and  for  another  side  the 
effort  to  deal  with  that  tangle  of  far-reaching  ques 
tions  which  we  group  together  when  we  speak  of 
'labor.'" 

By  his  settlement  of  the  coal  strike,  Roosevelt 
showed  the  workers  that  he  would  practice  towards 
them  the  justice  which  he  preached,  but  this  did  not 
mean  that  he  would  be  unjust  towards  the  capital 
ists.  They,  too,  should  have  justice,  and  they  had  it. 
He  never  intended  to  coddle  laborers  or  to  make 
them  feel  that,  having  a  grievance,  as  they  alleged, 
they  must  be  specially  favored.  Since  Labor  is,  or 
should  be,  common  to  all  men,  Roosevelt  believed 
that  every  laborer,  whether  farmer  or  mechanic, 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION        249 

employer  or  employee,  merchant  or  financier,  should 
stand  erect  and  look  every  other  man  straight  in  the 
eyes,  and  neither  look  up  nor  down,  but  with  level 
gaze,  fearless,  uncringing,  uncondescending.  The 
laws  he  proposed,  the  adjustments  he  arranged,  had 
the  self-respect,  the  dignity,  of  the  individual,  for 
their  aim.  He  knew  that  nothing  could  be  more  dan 
gerous  to  the  public,  or  more  harmful  to  the  laboring 
class  itself,  than  to  make  of  it  a  privileged  class, 
absolved  from  the  obligations,  and  even  from  the 
laws,  which  bound  the  rest  of  the  community.  By 
this  ideal  he  set  a  great  gulf  between  himself  and  the 
demagogues  who  fawned  upon  Labor  and  corrupted 
it  by  granting  its  unjust  demands. 

He  had  always  present  before  him  a  vision  of  the 
sacred  Oneness  of  the  body  politic.  This  made  him 
the  greatest  of  modern  Democrats,  and  the  chief 
interpreter,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  the  highest  ideal  of 
American  Democracy.  The  ideal  of  Oneness  can 
never  be  realized  in  a  State  which  permits  a  single 
class  to  enjoy  privileges  of  its  own  at  the  expense  of 
all  other  classes ;  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether 
this  class  belongs  to  the  Proletariat  or  to  the  Plutoc 
racy.  Equality  before  the  law,  and  justice,  are  the 
two  eternal  instruments  for  establishing  the  true 
Democracy.  And  I  do  not  recall  that  in  any  of  the 
measures  which  Roosevelt  supported  these  two  vital 


250  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

principles  were  violated.  The  following  brief  quota 
tions  from  later  messages  summarize  his  creed : 

In  the  vast  and  complicated  mechanism  of  our  modern 
civilized  life,  the  dominant  note  is  the  note  of  industrialism, 
and  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor,  and  especially  of 
organized  capital  and  organized  labor,  to  each  other,  and  to 
the  public  at  large,  come  second  in  importance  only  to  the 
intimate  questions  of  family  life. 

The  corporation  has  come  to  stay,  just  as  the  trade  union 
has  come  to  stay.  Each  can  do  and  has  done  great  good.  Each 
should  be  favored  as  long  as  it  does  good,  but  each  should  be 
sharply  checked  where  it  acts  against  law  and  justice. 

Any  one  can  profess  a  creed;  Theodore  Roosevelt 
lived  his. 

Nothing  better  tested  his  impartiality  than  the 
strike  of  the  Federation  of  Western  Miners  in  1907. 
Many  murders  and  much  violence  were  attributed 
to  this  organization  and  they  were  charged  with 
assassinating  Governor  Steunenberg  of  Idaho.  Their 
leaders,  Moyer  and  Haywood,  were  anarchists  like 
themselves,  and  although  they  professed  contempt 
for  law,  as  soon  as  they  were  arrested  and  brought 
up  for  trial,  they  clutched  at  every  quibble  of  the 
law,  as  drowning  men  clutch  at  straws  to  save  them ; 
and,  be  it  said  to  the  glory  or  shame  of  the  law,  it 
furnished  enough  quibbles,  not  only  to  save  them 
from  the  gallows,  but  to  let  them  loose  again  on  soci 
ety  with  the  legal  whitewash  "not  guilty"  stamped 
upon  them. 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION        251 

Roosevelt  understood  the  great  importance  of 
punishing  these  men,  and  he  committed  the  indiscre 
tion  of  classing  them  with  certain  big  capitalists  as 
"  undesirable  citizens."  Members  of  the  Federation 
then  wrote  him  denouncing  his  attempt  to  prejudice 
the  courts  against  Mover  and  Haywood,  and  they 
resented  that  their  leaders  should  be  coupled  with 
Harriman  and  other  big  capitalists  as  "  undesirable 
citizens."  This  gave  the  President  the  opportunity 
to  reply  that  such  criticism  did  not  come  appropri 
ately  from  the  Federation;  for  they  and  their  sup 
porters  had  got  up  parades,  mass-meetings,  and  peti 
tions  in  favor  «of  Moyer  and  Haywood  and  for  the 
direct  purposf  of  intimidating  the  court  and  jury. 
11  You  want,"^he  said  in  substance,  "the  square  deal 
for  the  defendants  only.  I  want  the  square  deal  for 
every  one";  aAd  he  added,  "  It  is  equally  a  violation 
of  the  policy  jof  the  square  deal  for  a  capitalist  to 
protest  agaiigst  denunciation  of  a  capitalist  who  is 
guilty  of  wrongdoing  and  for  a  labor  leader  to  pro 
test  against? the  denunciation  of  a  labor  leader  who 
has  been  guilty  of  wrongdoing."  1 

But  Mover  and  Haywood,  as  I  have  said,  escaped 

punishmeift,  and  before  long  Haywood  reappeared 

as  leader  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  an 

anarchists:   body   with   a   comically   inappropriate 

j  *  Autobiography,  531. 


252  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

name  for  its  members  objected  to  nothing  so  much 
as  to  industry  and  work.  The  I.W.W.,  as  they  have 
been  known  for  short,  have  consistently  preached 
violence  and  "action,"  by  which  they  might  take 
for  themselves  the  savings  and  wealth  of  others  as  a 
means  to  enable  them  to  do  no  work.  And  some  of 
the  recent  strikes  which  have  brought  the  greatest 
misery  upon  the  laborers  whom  they  misled,  have 
been  directed  by  I.W.W.  leaders. 

' '  I  treated  anarchists  and  bomb-throwing  and 
dynamiting  gentry  precisely  as  I  treated  other  crim 
inals,"  Roosevelt  writes:  "Murder  is  murder.  It  is 
not  rendered  one  whit  better  by  the  Allegation  that 
it  is  committed  on  behalf  of  a  cause."  'I  need  hardly 
state  that  the  President  was  as  consistently  vigilant 
to  prevent  labor  unions  from  persecuting  non-union 
men  as  he  was  in  upholding  the  jusrf  rights  of  the 
union.  / 

Consider  what  this  record  of  his  wit'\  Capital  and 
Labor  really  means.  The  social  conditions  in  the 
United  States,  owing  to  the  immense  expansion  in 
the  production  of  wealth  —  an  expansion  which  in 
cluded  the  invention  of  innumerable  machines  and 
the  application,  largely  made  possible  by  immigra 
tion,  of  millions  of  laborers  —  had  changed  rapidly, 

and  had  brought  pressingly  to  the  front  novel  and 

i 

1  Autobiography,  532. 


THE  SQUARE  DEAL  IN  ACTION         253 

gigantic  industrial  and  financial  problems.  In  the 
solution  of  these  problems  Justice  and  Equality  must 
not  only  be  regarded,  but  must  play  the  determining 
part.  Now,  Justice  and  Equality  were  beautiful  ab 
stractions  which  could  be  praised  by  every  dema 
gogue  without  laying  upon  him  any  obligation  except 
that  of  dulcet  lip  service.  Every  American,  young  or 
old,  had  heard  them  lauded  so  unlimitedly  that  he 
did  not  trouble  himself  to  inquire  whether  they  were 
facts  or  not;  they  were  words,  sonorous  and  pleasing 
words,  which  made  his  heart  throb,  and  himself  feel 
a  worthier  creature.  And  then  came  along  a  young 
zealot,  mighty  in  physical  vigor  and  moral  energy, 
who  believed  that  Justice  and  Equality  were  not 
mere  abstractions,  were  not  mere  words  for  politi 
cians  and  parsons  to  thrill  their  audiences  by,  but 
were  realities,  duties,  which  every  man  in  a  Democ 
racy  was  bound  to  revere  and  to  make  prevail.  And 
he  urged  them  with  such  power  of  persuasion,  such 
tirelessness,  such  titanic  zeal,  that  he  not  only  con 
verted  the  masses  of  the  people  to  believe  in  them, 
too,  but  he  also  made  the  legislators  of  the  country 
understand  that  they  must  embody  these  principles 
in  the  national  statute  book.  He  did  not  originate, 
as  I  have  said,  all  or  most  of  the  reforms,  but  he  gave 
ear  to  those  who  first  suggested  them,  and  his  enthu 
siasm  and  support  were  essential  to  their  adoption. 


254  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

In  order  to  measure  the  magnitude  of  Roosevelt's 
contribution  in  marking  deeply  the  main  principles 
which  should  govern  the  New  Age,  we  need  only 
remember  how  little  his  predecessor,  President 
McKinley,  a  good  man  with  the  best  intentions, 
either  realized  that  the  New  Age  was  at  hand,  or 
thought  it  necessary  even  to  outline  the  principles 
which  should  guide  it;  and  how  little  his  successor, 
President  Taft,  a  most  amiable  man,  understood 
that  the  New  Age,  with  the  Rooseveltian  reforms, 
had  come  to  stay,  and  could  not  be  swept  back  by 
actively  opposing  it  or  by  allowing  the  Rooseveltian 
ideals  to  lapse. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME 

ALTHOUGH  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  person 
ally  known  to  more  people  of  the  United 
States  than  any  other  President  has  been,  and  his 
manners  and  quick  responsive  cordiality  made  mul 
titudes  feel,  after  a  brief  sight  of  him,  or  after  shak 
ing  his  hand,  that  they  were  old  acquaintances,  he 
maintained  during  his  life  a  dignified  reticence  re 
garding  his  home  and  family.  But  now  that  he  is 
dead  and  the  world  craves  eagerly,  but  not  irrever 
ently,  to  know  as  much  as  it  can  about  his  many 
sides,  I  feel  that  it  is  not  improper  to  say  something 
about  that  intimate  side  which  was  in  some  respects 
the  most  characteristic  of  all. 

Early  in  the  eighties  he  bought  a  country  place  at 
Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island,  and  on  the  top  of  a  hill  he 
built  a  spacious  house.  There  was  a  legend  that  in 
old  times  Indian  Chiefs  used  to  gather  there  to  hold 
their  powwows;  at  any  rate,  the  name,  the  Saga 
mores'  Hill,  survived  them,  and  this  shortened  to 
Sagamore  Hill  he  gave  to  his  home.  That  part  of 
Long  Island  on  the  north  coast  overlooking  the 
Sound  is  very  attractive;  it  is  a  country  of  hills  and 


256  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

hollows,  with  groves  of  tall  trees,  and  open  fields  for 
farming,  and  lawns  near  the  house.  You  look  down 
on  Oyster  Bay  which  seems  to  be  a  small  lake  shut 
in  by  the  curving  shore  at  the  farther  end.  From  the 
house  you  see  the  Sound  and  the  hills  of  Connecticut 
along  the  horizon. 

After  the  death  of  his  first  wife  in  January,  1884, 
Roosevelt  went  West  to  the  Bad  Lands  of  North 
Dakota  where  he  lived  two  years  at  Medora,  on  a 
ranch  which  he  owned,  and  there  he  endured  the 
hardships  and  excitements  of  ranch  life  at  that  time ; 
acting  as  cow-puncher,  ranchman,  deputy  sheriff,  or 
hunting  big  and  little  game,  or  writing  books  and 
articles.  In  the  autumn  of  1886,  however,  having 
been  urged  to  run  as  candidate  for  Mayor  of  New 
York  City,  he  came  East  again.  He  made  a  vigorous 
campaign,  but  having  two  opponents  against  him  he 
was  beaten.  Then  he  took  a  trip  to  Europe  where  he 
married  Miss  Edith  Kermit  Carow,  whom  he  had 
known  in  New  York  since  childhood,  and  on  their 
return  to  this  country,  they  settled  at  Sagamore  Hill. 
Two  years  later,  when  President  Harrison  appointed 
Roosevelt  a  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  they  moved 
to  Washington.  There  they  lived  in  a  rather  small 
house  at  1720  Jefferson  Place  —  "modest,"  one 
might  call  it,  in  comparison  with  the  modern  palaces 
which  had  begun  to  spring  up  in  the  National  Cap- 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.Y. 
SAGAMORE  HILL 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  257 

ital ;  but  people  go  to  a  house  for  the  sake  of  its  occu 
pants  and  not  for  its  size  and  upholstery. 

So  for  almost  six  years  pretty  nearly  everybody 
worth  knowing  crossed  the  Roosevelts'  threshold, 
and  they  themselves  quickly  took  their  place  in 
Washington  society.  Roosevelt's  humor,  his  charm, 
his  intensity,  his  approachableness,  attracted  even 
those  who  rejected  his  politics  and  his  party.  Bright 
sayings  cannot  be  stifled,  and  his  added  to  the  gayety 
of  more  than  one  group.  He  was  too  discreet  to  give 
utterance  to  them  all,  but  his  private  letters  at  that 
time,  and  always,  glistened  with  his  remarks  on  pub 
lic  characters.  He  said,  for  instance,  of  Senator  X, 
whom  he  knew  in  Washington :  He ' '  looks  like  Judas, 
but  unlike  that  gentleman,  he  has  no  capacity  for 


remorse." 


When  the  Roosevelts  returned  to  New  York,  where 
he  became  Police  Commissioner  in  1895,  they  made 
their  home  again  at  Oyster  Bay.  This  was  thirty 
miles  by  rail  from  the  city,  near  enough  to  be  easily 
accessible,  but  far  enough  away  to  deter  the  visits  of 
random,  curious,  undesired  callers.  Later,  when  auto 
mobiles  came  in,  Roosevelt  motored  to  and  from 
town.  Mrs.  Roosevelt  looked  after  the  place  itself; 
she  supervised  the  farming,  and  the  flower  gardens 
were  her  especial  care.  The  children  were  now  grow 
ing  up,  and  from  the  time  when  they  could  toddle 


258  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

they  took  their  place  —  a  very  large  place  —  in  the 
life  of  the  home.  Roosevelt  described  the  intense  sat 
isfaction  he  had  in  teaching  the  boys  what  his  father 
had  taught  him.  As  soon  as  they  were  large  enough, 
they  rode  their  horses,  they  sailed  on  the  Cove  and 
out  into  the  Sound.  They  played  boys'  games,  and 
through  him  they  learned  very  young  to  observe 
nature.  In  his  college  days  he  had  intended  to  be  a 
naturalist,  and  natural  history  remained  his  strong 
est  avocation.  And  so  he  taught  his  children  to  know 
the  birds  and  animals,  the  trees,  plants,  and  flowers 
of  Oyster  Bay  and  its  neighborhood.  They  had  their 
pets  —  Kermit,  one  of  the  boys,  carried  a  pet  rat  in 
his  pocket. 

Three  things  Roosevelt  required  of  them  all; 
obedience,  manliness,  and  truthfulness.  And  I  imag 
ine  that  all  these  virtues  were  taught  by  affection 
and  example,  rather  than  by  constant  correction. 
For  the  family  was  wholly  united,  they  did  every 
thing  together;  the  children  had  no  better  fun  than 
to  accompany  their  father  and  mother,  and  there 
were  a  dozen  or  more  young  cousins  and  neighbors 
who  went  out  with  them  too,  forming  a  large,  de 
lighted  family  for  whom  "Uncle"  or  "Cousin  Theo 
dore"  was  leader  and  idol.  And  just  as  formerly,  in 
the  long  winter  nights  on  his  ranch  at  Medora,  he 
used  to  read  aloud  to  the  cowboys  and  hunters  of 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  259 

what  was  then  the  Western  Wilderness,  so  at  Saga 
more  Hill,  in  the  days  of  their  childhood,  he  read  or 
told  stories  to  the  circle  of  boys  and  girls. 

In  1901,  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  President,  and  for 
seven  years  and  a  half  his  official  residence  was  the 
White  House,  where  he  was  obliged  to  spend  most 
of  the  year.  But  whenever  he  could  steal  away  for  a 
few  days  he  sought  rest  and  recreation  at  Oyster 
Bay,  and  there,  during  the  summers,  his  family 
lived.  So  far  as  the  changed  conditions  permitted, 
he  did  not  allow  his  official  duties  to  interfere  with 
his  family  life.  "One  of  the  most  wearing  things 
about  being  President,"  a  President  once  said  to  me, 
"is  the  incessant  publicity  of  it.  For  four  years  you 
have  not  a  moment  to  yourself,  not  a  moment  of 
privacy."  And  yet  Roosevelt,  masterful  in  so  many 
other  things,  was  masterful  in  this  also.  Nothing 
interfered  with  the  seclusion  of  the  family  breakfast. 
There  were  no  guests,  only  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  the 
children,  and  the  simplest  of  food.  At  Oyster  Bay  he 
would  often  chop  trees  in  the  early  morning,  and 
sometimes,  while  he  was  President,  he  would  ride 
before  breakfast,  but  the  meal  itself  was  quiet,  pri 
vate,  uninterrupted.  Then  each  member  of  the  fam 
ily  would  go  about  his  or  her  work,  for  idleness  had 
no  place  with  them.  The  President  spent  his  morn 
ing  in  attending  to  his  correspondence  and  dictating 


26o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

letters,  then  in  receiving  persons  by  appointment, 
and  he  always  reserved  time  when  any  American,  rich 
or  poor,  young  or  old,  could  speak  to  him  freely.  He 
liked  to  see  them  all  and  many  were  the  odd  experi 
ences  which  he  had.  He  asked  one  old  lady  what  he 
could  do  for  her.  She  replied:  " Nothing;  I  came  all 
the  way  from  Jacksonville,  Florida,  just  to  see  what 
a  live  President  looked  like.  I  never  saw  one  before." 
" That's  very  kind  of  you,"  the  President  replied; 
"persons  from  up  here  go  all  the  way  to  Florida  just 
to  see  a  live  alligator"  —  and  so  he  put  the  visitor 
at  her  ease. 

Luncheon  was  a  varied  meal;  sometimes  there 
were  only  two  or  three  guests  at  it;  at  other  times 
there  might  be  a  dozen.  It  afforded  the  President  an 
opportunity  for  talking  informally  with  visitors 
whom  he  wished  to  see,  and  not  infrequently  it 
brought  together  round  the  table  a  strange,  not  to 
say  a  motley,  company. 

After  luncheon  followed  more  work  in  his  office 
for  the  President,  looking  over  the  letters  he  had  dic 
tated  and  signing  them,  signing  documents  and  hold 
ing  interviews.  Later  in  the  afternoon  he  always 
reserved  two  hours  for  a  walk  or  drive  with  Mrs. 
Roosevelt.  Nothing  interfered  with  that.  In  the  sea 
son  he  played  tennis  with  some  of  the  large  group  of 
companions  whom  he  gathered  round  him,  officials 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  261 

high  and  low,  foreign  Ambassadors  and  Cabinet 
Ministers  and  younger  under- secretaries  who  were 
popularly  known  as  the  " Tennis  Cabinet."  There 
were  fifty  or  more  of  them,  and  that  so  many  should 
have  kept  their  athletic  vigor  into  middle  age,  and 
even  beyond  it,  spoke  well  for  the  physique  of  the 
men  of  official  Washington  at  that  time. 

At  Oyster  Bay  Roosevelt  had  instituted  ''hiking." 
He  and  the  young  people  and  such  of  the  neighbors 
as  chose  would  start  from  Sagamore  Hill  and  walk 
in  a  bee-line  to  a  point  four  or  five  miles  off.  The  rule 
was  that  no  natural  impediment  should  cause  them 
to  digress  or  to  stop.  So  they  went  through  the  fields 
and  over  the  fences,  across  ditches  and  pools,  and 
even  clambered  up  and  down  a  haystack,  if  one  hap 
pened  to  be  in  the  way,  or  through  a  barnyard.  Of 
course  they  often  reached  home  spattered  with  mud 
or  even  drenched  to  the  skin  from  a  plunge  into  the 
water,  but  with  much  fun,  a  livelier  circulation,  and 
a  hearty  appetite  to  their  credit. 

In  Washington  the  President  continued  this  prac 
tice  of  hiking,  but  in  a  somewhat  modified  form.  His 
favorite  resort  was  Rock  Creek,  then  a  wild  stream, 
with  a  good  deal  of  water  in  it,  and  here  and  there 
steep,  rocky  banks.  To  be  invited  by  the  President 
to  go  on  one  of  those  hikes  was  regarded  as  a  mark 
of  special  favor.  He  indulged  in  them  to  test  a  man's 


262  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

bodily  vigor  and  endurance,  and  there  were  many 
amusing  incidents  and  perhaps  more  amusing  stories 
about  them.  M.  Tardieu,  who  at  that  time  was  pay 
ing  a  short  visit  to  this  country  and  was  connected 
with  the  French  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  told 
me  that  the  dispatches  which  the  new  French  Am 
bassador,  M.  Jusserand,  sent  to  Paris  were  full  of 
reports  on  President  Roosevelt's  personality.  The 
Europeans  had  no  definite  conception  of  him  at  that 
time,  and  so  the  sympathetic  and  much-esteemed 
Ambassador,  who  still  represents  France  at  Wash 
ington,  tried  to  give  his  Government  information  by 
which  it  could  judge  for  itself  what  sort  of  a  person 
the  President  was.  What  must  have  been  the  sur 
prise  in  the  French  Foreign  Office  when  it  received 
the  following  dispatch:  (I  give  the  substance,  of 
course,  because  I  have  not  seen  the  original.) 

'Yesterday,'  wrote  Ambassador  Jusserand,  'President 
Roosevelt  invited  me  to  take  a  promenade  with  him  this 
afternoon  at  three.  I  arrived  at  the  White  House  punctually, 
in  afternoon  dress  and  silk  hat,  as  if  we  were  to  stroll  in  the 
Tuileries  Garden  or  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  To  my  surprise, 
the  President  soon  joined  me  in  a  tramping  suit,  with  knicker 
bockers  and  thick  boots,  and  soft  felt  hat,  much  worn.  Two 
or  three  other  gentlemen  came,  and  we  started  off  at  what 
seemed  to  me  a  breakneck  pace,  which  soon  brought  us  out 
of  the  city.  On  reaching  the  country,  the  President  went  pell- 
mell  over  the  fields,  following  neither  road  nor  path,  always 
on,  on,  straight  ahead!  I  was  much  winded,  but  I  would  not 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  263 

give  in,  nor  ask  him  to  slow  up,  because  I  had  the  honor  of 
La  belle  France  in  my  heart.  At  last  we  came  to  the  bank  of  a 
stream,  rather  wide  and  too  deep  to  be  forded.  I  sighed  relief, 
because  I  thought  that  now  we  had  reached  our  goal  and 
would  rest  a  moment  and  catch  our  breath,  before  turning 
homeward.  But  judge  of  my  horror  when  I  saw  the  President 
unbutton  his  clothes  and  heard  him  say,  "We  had  better 
strip,  so  as  not  to  wet  our  things  in  the  Creek."  Then  I,  too, 
for  the  honor  of  France,  removed  my  apparel,  everything 
except  my  lavender  kid  gloves.  The  President  cast  an  inquir 
ing  look  at  these  as  if  they,  too,  must  come  off,  but  I  quickly 
forestalled  any  remark  by  saying,  "With  your  permission, 
Mr.  President,  I  will  keep  these  on,  otherwise  it  would  be  em 
barrassing  if  we  should  meet  ladies."  And  so  we  jumped  into 
the  water  and  swam  across.' 

M.  Jusserand  has  a  fine  sense  of  humor  and  doubt 
less  he  has  laughed  often  over  this  episode,  although 
he  must  have  been  astonished  and  irritated  when  it 
occurred.  But  it  gave  Roosevelt  exactly  what  he 
wanted  by  showing  him  that  the  plucky  little  French 
man  was  "game"  for  anything,  and  they  remained 
firm  friends  for  life. 

Occasionally,  one  of  the  guests  invited  on  a  hike 
relucted  from  taking  the  plunge,  and  then  he  was  al 
lowed  to  go  up  stream  or  down  and  find  a  crossing 
at  a  bridge;  but  I  suspect  that  his  host  and  the  ha 
bitual  hikers  instinctively  felt  a  little  less  regard  for 
him  after  that.  General  Leonard  Wood  was  one  of 
Roosevelt's  boon  companions  on  these  excursions, 
and,  speaking  of  him,  I  am  reminded  of  one  of  the 


264  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

President's  orders  which  caused  a  great  flurry  among 
Army  officers  in  Washington. 

The  President  learned  that  many  of  these  officers 
had  become  soft,  physically,  through  their  long  resi 
dence  in  the  city,  where  an  unmilitary  life  did  not 
tend  to  keep  their  muscles  hard.  As  a  consequence 
these  great  men  of  war  became  easy-going,  indolent 
even,  better  suited  to  loaf  in  the  armchairs  of  the 
Metropolitan  Club  and  discuss  campaigns  and  bat 
tles  long  ago  than  to  lead  troops  in  the  field.  "  Their 
condition,"  said  Roosevelt,  "would  have  excited 
laughter,  had  it  not  been  so  serious,  to  think  that 
they  belonged  to  the  military  arm  of  the  Govern 
ment.  A  cavalry  colonel  proved  unable  to  keep  his 
horse  at  a  sharp  trot  for  even  half  a  mile  when  I  vis 
ited  his  post;  a  major-general  proved  afraid  even  to 
let  his  horse  canter  when  he  went  on  a  ride  with  us ; 
and  certain  otherwise  good  men  proved  as  unable  to 
walk  as  if  they  had  been  sedentary  brokers."  After 
consulting  Generals  Wood  and  Bell,  who  were  them 
selves  real  soldiers  at  the  top  of  condition,  the  Presi 
dent  issued  orders  that  the  infantry  should  march 
fifty  miles,  and  the  cavalry  one  hundred,  in  three 
days.  There  was  an  outcry.  The  newspapers  de 
nounced  Roosevelt  as  a  tyrant  who  followed  his 
mere  caprices.  Some  of  the  officers  intrigued  with 
Congressmen  to  nullify  the  order.  But  when  the 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  265 

President  himself,  accompanied  by  Surgeon-General 
Rixey  and  two  officers,  rode  more  than  one  hundred 
miles  in  a  single  day  over  the  frozen  and  rutty  Vir 
ginia  roads,  the  objectors  could  not  keep  up  open 
opposition.  Roosevelt  adds,  ironically,  that  three 
naval  officers  who  walked  the  fifty  miles  in  a  day, 
were  censured  for  not  obeying  instructions,  and  were 
compelled  to  do  the  test  over  again  in  three  days. 

Dinner  in  the  White  House  was  usually  a  formal 
affair,  to  which  most,  if  not  all  the  guests,  at  least, 
were  invited  some  time  in  advance.  There  were,  of 
course,  the  official  dinners  to  the  foreign  diplomats, 
to  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  to  the  members 
of  the  Cabinet;  ordinarily,  they  might  be  described 
as  general.  The  President  never  forgot  those  who  had 
been  his  friends  at  any  period  of  his  life.  It  might 
happen  that  Bill  Sewall,  his  earliest  guide  from 
Maine,  or  a  Dakota  ranchman,  or  a  New  York  po 
liceman,  or  one  of  his  trusted  enthusiasts  in  a  hard- 
fought  political  campaign,  turned  up  at  the  White 
House.  He  was  sure  to  be  asked  to  luncheon  or  to 
dinner,  by  the  President.  And  these  former  chums 
must  have  felt  somewhat  embarrassed,  if  they  were 
capable  of  feeling  embarrassment,  when  they  found 
themselves  seated  beside  some  of  the  great  ladies  of 
Washington.  Perhaps  Roosevelt  himself  felt  a  little 
trepidation  as  to  how  the  unmixables  would  mix.  He 


266  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

is  reported  to  have  said  to  one  Western  cowboy  of 
whom  he  was  fond:  "Now,  Jimmy,  don't  bring  your 
gun  along  to-night.  The  British  Ambassador  is  going 
to  dine  too,  and  it  would  n't  do  for  you  to  pepper  the 
floor  round  his  feet  with  bullets,  in  order  to  see  a 
tenderfoot  dance." 

But  those  dinners  were  mainly  memorable  occa 
sions,  and  the  guests  who  attended  them  heard  some 
of  the  best  talk  in  America  at  that  time,  and  came 
away  with  increased  wonder  for  the  variety  of  knowl 
edge  and  interest,  and  for  the  unceasing  charm  and 
courtesy  of  their  host,  the  President.  Contrary  to  the 
opinion  of  persons  who  heard  him  only  as  a  political 
speaker  shouting  in  the  open  air  from  the  back  plat 
form  of  his  train  or  in  a  public  square,  Roosevelt  was 
not  only  a  speaker,  he  was  also  a  most  courteous  lis 
tener.  I  watched  him  at  little  dinners  listen  not  only 
patiently,  but  with  an  astonishing  simulation  of  in 
terest,  to  very  dull  persons  who  usurped  the  con 
versation  and  imagined  that  they  were  winning  his 
admiration.  Mr.  John  Morley,  who  was  a  guest  at 
the  White  House  at  election  time  in  1904,  said: 
"The  two  things  in  America  which  seem  to  me 
most  extraordinary  are  Niagara  Falls  and  President 
Roosevelt." 

Jacob  Riis,  the  most  devoted  personal  follower  of 
Roosevelt,  gives  this  as  the  finest  compliment  he  ever 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  267 

heard  of  him.  A  lady  said  that  she  had  always  been 
looking  for  some  living  embodiment  of  the  high 
ideals  she  had  as  to  what  a  hero  ought  to  be.  "  I  al 
ways  wanted  to  make  Roosevelt  out  that,"  she  de 
clared,  "but  somehow  every  time  he  did  something 
that  seemed  really  great  it  turned  out,  upon  looking 
at  it  closely,  that  it  was  only  just  the  right  thing  to  do.1'1 
But  at  home  Roosevelt  had  affection,  not  com 
pliments,  whether  these  were  unintentional  and  sin 
cere,  like  that  of  the  lady  just  quoted,  or  were  thinly 
disguised  flattery.  And  affection  was  what  he  most 
craved  from  his  family  and  nearest  friends,  and  what 
he  gave  to  them  without  stint.  As  I  have  said,  he  al 
lowed  nothing  to  interrupt  the  hours  set  apart  for  his 
wife  and  children  while  he  was  at  the  White  House; 
and  at  Oyster  Bay  there  was  always  time  for  them. 
A  typical  story  is  told  of  the  boys  coming  in  upon  him 
during  a  conference  with  some  important  visitor,  and 
saying  reproachfully,  "It's  long  after  four  o'clock, 
and  you  promised  to  go  with  us  at  four."  "So  I  did," 
said  Roosevelt.  And  he  quickly  finished  his  business 
with  the  visitor  and  went.  When  the  children  were 
young,  he  usually  saw  them  at  supper  and  into  bed, 
and  he  talked  of  the  famous  pillow  fights  they  had 
with  him.  House  guests  at  the  White  House  some 
times  unexpectedly  caught  sight  of  him  crawling  in 

1  Riis,  268-69. 


268  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  entry  near  the  children's  rooms,  with  two  or 
three  children  riding  on  his  back.  Roosevelt's  days 
were  seldom  less  than  fifteen  hours  long,  and  we  can 
guess  how  he  regarded  the  laboring  men  of  today  who 
clamor  for  eight  and  six,  and  even  fewer  hours,  as  the 
normal  period  for  a  day's  work.  He  got  up  at  half- 
past  seven  and  always  finished  breakfast  by  nine, 
when  what  many  might  call  the  real  work  of  his  day 
began. 

The  unimaginative  laborer  probably  supposes  that 
most  of  the  duties  which  fall  to  an  industrious  Presi 
dent  are  not  strictly  work  at  all ;  but  if  any  one  had 
to  meet  for  an  hour  and  a  half  every  forenoon  such 
Congressmen  and  Senators  as  chose  to  call  on  him,  he 
would  understand  that  that  was  a  job  involving  real 
work,  hard  work.  They  came  every  day  with  a  griev 
ance,  or  an  appeal,  or  a  suggestion,  or  a  favor  to  ask, 
and  he  had  to  treat  each  one,  not  only  politely,  but 
more  or  less  deferently.  Early  in  his  Administration 
I  heard  it  said  that  he  offended  some  Congressmen  by 
denying  their  requests  in  so  loud  a  voice  that  others 
in  the  room  could  hear  him,  and  this  seemed  to  some 
a  humiliation.  President  McKinley,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  said,  lowered  his  voice,  and  spoke  so 
softly  and  sweetly  that  even  his  refusal  did  not  jar 
on  his  visitor,  and  was  not  heard  at  all  by  the  by 
standers.  If  this  happened,  I  suspect  it  was  because 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  269 

Roosevelt  spoke  rather  explosively  and  had  a  habit 
of  emphasis,  and  not  because  he  wished  in  any 
way  to  send  his  petitioner's  rebuff  through  the 
room. 

Nor  was  the  hour  which  followed  this,  when  he  re 
ceived  general  callers,  less  wearing.  As  these  persons 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  so  they  were  of  all 
sorts  and  temperaments.  Here  was  a  worthy  citizen 
from  Colorado  who,  on  the  strength  of  having  once 
heard  the  President  make  a  public  speech  in  Denver, 
claimed  immediate  friendship  with  him.  Then  might 
come  an  old  lady  from  Georgia,  who  remembered  his 
mother's  people  there,  or  the  lady  from  Jacksonville, 
Florida,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken.  Once  a  lit 
tle  boy,  who  was  almost  lost  in  the  crush  of  grown-up 
visitors,  managed  to  reach  the  President.  "  What  can 
I  do  for  you?"  the  President  asked;  and  the  boy  told 
how  his  father  had  died  leaving  his  mother  with  a 
large  family  and  no  money,  and  how  he  was  selling 
typewriters  to  help  support  her.  His  mother,  he  said, 
would  be  most  grateful  if  the  President  would  accept 
a  typewriter  from  her  as  a  gift.  So  the  President 
told  the  little  fellow  to  go  and  sit  down  until  the 
other  visitors  had  passed,  and  then  he  would  attend 
to  him.  No  doubt,  the  boy  left  the  White  House 
well  contented  —  and  richer. 

Roosevelt's  official  day  ended  at  half-past  nine  or 


270  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ten  in  the  evening,  and  then,  after  the  family  had 
gone  to  bed,  he  sat  down  to  read  or  write,  and  it  was 
long  after  midnight,  sometimes  one  o'clock,  some 
times  much  later,  before  he  turned  in  himself. 

He  regarded  the  preservation  of  health  as  a  duty ; 
and  well  he  might  so  regard  it,  because  in  childhood 
he  had  been  a  sickly  boy,  with  apparently  only  a  life 
of  invalidism  to  look  forward  to.  But  by  sheer  will, 
and  by  going  through  physical  exercises  with  indom 
itable  perseverance,  he  had  built  up  his  body  until  he 
was  strong  enough  to  engage  in  all  sports  and  in  the 
hardships  of  Western  life  and  hunting.  After  he  be 
came  President,  he  allowed  nothing  to  interfere  with 
his  physical  exercise.  I  have  spoken  of  his  long  hikes 
and  of  his  vigorous  games  with  members  of  the  Ten 
nis  Cabinet.  On  many  afternoons  he  would  ride  for 
two  hours  or  more  with  Mrs.  Roosevelt  or  some 
friend,  and  it  is  a  sad  commentary  on  the  perpetual 
publicity  to  which  the  American  people  condemn 
their  Presidents,  that  he  sometimes  was  obliged  to 
ride  off  into  the  country  with  one  of  his  Cabinet  Min 
isters  in  order  to  be  able  to  discuss  public  matters  in 
private  with  him.  Roosevelt  took  care  to  provide 
means  for  exercise  indoors  in  very  stormy  weather. 
He  had  a  professional  boxer  and  wrestler  come  to 
him,  and  when  jiu-jitsu,  the  Japanese  system  of 
physical  training,  was  in  vogue,  he  learned  some  of 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  271 

its  introductory  mysteries  from  one  of  its  foremost 
professors. 

It  was  in  a  boxing  bout  at  the  White  House  with 
his  teacher  that  he  lost  the  sight  of  an  eye  from  a 
blow  which  injured  his  eyeball.  But  he  kept  this  loss 
secret  for  many  years.  He  had  a  wide  acquaintance 
among  professional  boxers  and  even  prize-fighters. 
Jeffries,  who  had  been  a  blacksmith  before  he  en 
tered  the  ring,  hammered  a  penholder  out  of  a  horse 
shoe  and  gave  it  to  the  President,  a  gift  which  Roose 
velt  greatly  prized  and  showed  among  his  trophies 
at  Oyster  Bay.  John  L.  Sullivan,  perhaps  the  most 
notorious  of  the  champion  prize-fighters  of  America, 
held  Roosevelt  in  such  great  esteem  that  when  he 
died  his  family  invited  the  ex- President  to  be  one  of 
the  pall-bearers.  But  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  then  too 
sick  himself  to  be  able  to  travel  to  Boston  and  serve. 

At  Oyster  Bay  in  summer,  the  President  found 
plenty  of  exercise  on  the  place.  It  contained  some 
eighty  acres,  part  of  which  was  woodland,  and  there 
were  always  trees  to  be  chopped.  Hay-making,  also, 
was  an  equally  severe  test  of  bodily  strength,  and  to 
pitch  hay  brought  every  muscle  into  use.  There,  too, 
he  had  water  sports,  but  he  always  preferred  rowing 
to  sailing,  which  was  too  slow  and  inactive  an  exercise 
for  him.  In  old  times,  rowing  used  to  be  the  penalty 
to  which  galley-slaves  were  condemned,  but  now  it  is 


272  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

commended  by  athletes  as  the  best  of  all  forms  of  ex 
ercise  for  developing  the  body  and  for  furnishing 
stimulating  competition. 

No  President  ever  lived  on  better  terms  with  the 
newspaper  men  than  Roosevelt  did.  He  treated  them 
all  with  perfect  fairness,  according  no  special  favors, 
no  "beats,"  or  " scoops"  to  any  one.  So  they  re 
garded  him  as  "  square  " ;  and  further  they  knew  that 
he  was  a  man  of  his  word,  not  to  be  trifled  with.  "It 
is  generally  supposed,"  Roosevelt  remarked,  "that 
newspaper  men  have  no  sense  of  honor,  but  that  is 
not  true.  If  you  treat  them  fairly,  they  will  treat 
you  fairly ;  and  they  will  keep  a  secret  if  you  impress 
upon  them  that  it  must  be  kept." 

The  great  paradox  of  Roosevelt's  character  was 
the  contrast  between  its  fundamental  simplicity  and 
its  apparent  spectacular  quality.  His  acts  seemed 
to  be  unusual,  striking,  and  some  uncharitable  critics 
thought  that  he  aimed  at  effect;  in  truth,  however, 
he  acted  at  the  moment  as  the  impulse  or  propriety 
of  the  moment  suggested.  There  was  no  premedita 
tion,  no  swagger.  Dwellers  in  Berlin  noticed  that 
after  William  the  Crown  Prince  became  the  Kaiser 
William  II,  he  thrust  out  his  chest  and  adopted  a 
rather  pompous  walk,  but  there  was  nothing  like 
this  in  Roosevelt's  manner  or  carriage.  In  his  public 
speaking,  he  gesticulated  incessantly,  and  in  the 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  273 

difficulty  he  had  in  pouring  out  his  words  as  rapidly 
as  the  thoughts  came  to  him,  he  seemed  sometimes 
almost  to  grimace;  but  this  was  natural,  not  studied. 
And  so  I  can  easily  understand  what  some  one  tells 
me  who  saw  him  almost  daily  as  President  in  the 
White  House.  "Roosevelt,"  he  said,  "had  an  im 
mense  reverence  for  the  Presidential  office.  He  did 
not  feel  cocky  or  conceited  at  being  himself  President; 
he  felt  rather  the  responsibility  for  dignity  which 
the  office  carried  with  it,  and  he  was  humble.  You 
might  be  as  intimate  with  him  as  possible,  but  there 
was  a  certain  line  which  no  one  ever  crossed.  That 
was  the  line  which  the  office  itself  drew." 

Roosevelt  had  that  reverence  for  the  great  men 
of  the  past  which  should  stir  every  heart  with  a  ca 
pacity  for  noble  things.  In  the  White  House  he  never 
forgot  the  Presidents  who  had  dwelt  there  before 
him.  "I  like  to  see  in  my  mind's  eye,"  he  said  to 
Mr.  Rhodes,  the  American  historian,  "the  gaunt 
form  of  Lincoln  stalking  through  these  halls."  Dur 
ing  a  visit  at  the  White  House,  Mr.  Rhodes  watched 
the  President  at  work  throughout  an  entire  day  and 
set  down  the  points  which  chiefly  struck  him.  Fore 
most  among  these  was  the  lack  of  leisure  which  we 
allow  our  Presidents.  They  have  work  to  do  which  is 
more  important  than  that  of  a  railroad  manager,  or 
the  president  of  the  largest  business  corporation,  or 


274  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  the  leader  of  the  American  Bar.  They  are  expected 
to  know  the  pros  and  cons  of  each  bill  brought  before 
them  to  sign  so  that  they  can  sign  it  not  only  intelli 
gently  but  justly,  and  yet  thanks  to  the  constant 
intrusion  which  Americans  deem  it  their  right  to 
force  on  the  President,  he  has  no  time  for  delibera 
tion,  and,  as  I  have  said,  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  often 
obliged,  when  he  wished  to  have  an  undisturbed  con 
sultation  with  one  of  his  Cabinet  Secretaries,  to  take 
him  off  on  a  long  ride. 

"I  chanced  to  be  in  the  President's  room,"  Mr. 
Rhodes  continues,  "when  he  dictated  the  rough 
draft  of  his  famous  dispatch  to  General  Chaffee  re 
specting  torture  in  the  Philippines.  While  he  was 
dictating,  two  or  three  cards  were  brought  in,  also 
some  books  with  a  request  for  the  President's  auto 
graph,  and  there  were  some  other  interruptions. 
While  the  dispatch  as  it  went  out  in  its  revised  form 
could  not  be  improved,  a  President  cannot  expect 
to  be  always  so  happy  in  dictating  dispatches  in  the 
midst  of  distractions.  Office  work  of  far-reaching 
importance  should  be  done  in  the  closet.  Certainly 
no  monarch  or  minister  in  Europe  does  administra 
tive  work  under  such  unfavorable  conditions;  in 
deed,  this  public  which  exacts  so  much  of  the  Presi 
dent's  time  should  in  all  fairness  be  considerate  in 
its  criticism."  l 

1  Rhodes :  Historical  Essays,  238-39. 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  275 

To  cope  in  some  measure  with  the  vast  amount  of 
business  thrust  upon  him,  Roosevelt  had  unique  en 
dowments.  Other  Presidents  had  been  indolent  and 
let  affairs  drift;  he  cleared  his  desk  every  day.  Other 
Presidents  felt  that  they  had  done  their  duty  if  they 
merely  dispatched  the  important  business  which 
came  to  them;  Roosevelt  was  always  initiating, 
either  new  legislation  or  new  methods  in  matters 
which  did  not  concern  the  Government.  One  autumn, 
when  there  was  unusual  excitement,  with  recrimina 
tions  in  disputes  in  the  college  football  world,  I  was 
surprised  to  receive  a  large  four-page  typewritten 
letter,  giving  his  views  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done. 
He  reorganized  the  service  in  the  White  House,  and 
not  only  that,  he  had  the  Executive  Mansion  itself 
remodeled  somewhat  according  to  the  original  plans 
so  as  to  furnish  adequate  space  for  the  crowds  who 
thronged  the  official  receptions,  and,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  building,  proper  quarters  for  the  stenog 
raphers,  typewriters,  and  telegraphers  required  to 
file  and  dispatch  his  correspondence.  Promptness 
was  his  watchword,  and  in  cases  where  it  was  ex 
pected,  I  never  knew  twenty-four  hours  to  elapse 
before  he  dictated  his  reply  to  a  letter. 

The  orderliness  which  he  introduced  into  the 
White  House  should  also  be  recorded.  When  I  first 
went  there  in  1882  with  a  party  of  Philadelphia 


276  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

junketers  who  had  an  appointment  to  shake  hands 
with  President  Arthur,  as  a  preliminary  to  securing 
a  fat  appropriation  to  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  of 
that  year,  the  White  House  was  treated  by  the  pub 
lic  very  much  as  a  common  resort.  The  country 
owned  it:  therefore,  why  should  n't  any  American 
make  himself  at  home  in  it?  I  remember  that  on  one 
of  the  staircases,  Dr.  Mary  Walker  (recently  dead), 
dressed  in  what  she  was  pleased  to  regard  as  a  mascu 
line  costume,  was  haranguing  a  group  of  five  or  six 
strangers,  and  here  and  there  in  the  corridors  we 
met  other  random  visitors.  Mr.  Roosevelt  established 
a  strict  but  simple  regimen.  No  one  got  past  the  Civil 
War  veteran  who  acted  as  doorkeeper  without 
proper  credentials;  and  it  was  impossible  to  reach 
the  President  himself  without  first  encountering  his 
Secretary,  Mr.  Loeb. 

To  the  President  some  persons  were,  of  course, 
privileged.  If  an  old  pal  from  the  West,  or  a  Rough 
Rider  came,  the  President  did  not  look  at  the  clock, 
or  speed  him  away.  The  story  goes  that  one  morning 
Senator  Cullom  came  on  a  matter  of  business  and 
indeed  rather  in  a  hurry.  On  asking  who  was  "in 
there,"  and  being  told  that  a  Rough  Rider  had  been 
with  the  President  for  a  half-hour,  the  Senator  said, 
'Then  there's  no  hope  for  me,"  took  his  hat,  and 
departed. 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  277 

Although,  as  I  have  said,  Roosevelt  might  be  as 
intimate  and  cordial  as  possible  with  any  visitor,  he 
never  forgot  the  dignity  which  belonged  to  his  office. 
Nor  did  he  forget  that  as  President  he  was  socially 
as  well  as  officially  the  first  person  in  the  Republic. 

In  speaking  of  these  social  affairs,  I  must  not  pass 
over  without  mention  the  unfailing  help  which  his 
two  sisters  gave  him  at  all  times.  The  elder,  the  wife 
of  Admiral  William  S.  Cowles,  lived  in  Washington 
when  Roosevelt  was  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
and  her  house  was  always  in  readiness  for  his  use. 
His  younger  sister,  Mrs.  Douglas  Robinson,  lived 
in  New  York  City,  and  first  at  No.  422  Madison 
Avenue  and  later  at  No.  9  East  Sixty-third  Street, 
she  dispensed  hospitality  for  him  and  his  friends. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  convenient.  If  he 
were  at  Oyster  Bay,  it  was  often  impossible  to  make 
an  appointment  to  meet  there  persons  whom  he 
wished  to  see,  but  he  had  merely  to  telephone  to 
Mrs.  Robinson,  the  appointment  was  made,  and  the 
interview  was  held.  It  was  at  her  house  that  many  of 
the  breakfasts  with  Senator  Platt  —  those  meetings 
which  caused  so  much  alarm  and  suspicion  among 
over-righteous  reformers  --  took  place  while  Roose 
velt  was  Governor.  Mr.  Odell  nearly  always  accom 
panied  the  Senator,  as  if  he  felt  afraid  to  trust  the 
astute  Boss  with  the  very  persuasive  young  Cover- 


278  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

nor.  Having  Mrs.  Robinson's  house  as  a  shelter, 
Theodore  could  screen  himself  from  the  newspaper 
men.  There  he  could  hold  private  consultations 
which,  if  they  had  been  referred  to  in  the  papers, 
would  have  caused  wild  guesses,  surmises,  and  em 
barrassing  remarks.  His  sisters  always  rejoiced  that, 
with  his  wonderful  generosity  of  nature,  he  took 
them  often  into  his  political  confidence,  and  lis 
tened  with  unfeigned  respect  to  their  point  of  view 
on  subjects  on  which  they  might  even  have  a  slight 
difference  of  opinion. 

Mr.  Charles  G.  Washburn  tells  the  following  story 
to  illustrate  Roosevelt's  faculty  of  getting  to  the 
heart  of  every  one  whom  he  knew.  When  he  was 
hunting  in  Colorado,  "he  met  a  cowboy  who  had 
been  with  him  with  the  Rough  Riders  in  Cuba.  The 
man  came  up  to  speak  to  Roosevelt,  and  said,  'Mr. 
President,  I  have  been  in  jail  a  year  for  killing  a 
gentleman.'  'How  did  you  do  it?'  asked  the  Presi 
dent,  meaning  to  inquire  as  to  the  circumstances. 
'  Thirty-eight  on  a  forty-five  frame,'  replied  the  man, 
thinking  that  the  only  interest  the  President  had 
was  that  of  a  comrade  who  wanted  to  know  with 
what  kind  of  a  tool  the  trick  was  done.  Now,  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  to  no  other  President,  from 
Washington  down  to  and  including  Wilson,  would 
the  man-killer  have  made  that  response."  1 

1  Washburn,  202-03. 


ROOSEVELT  AT  HOME  279 

I  think  that  all  of  us  will  agree  with  Mr.  Wash- 
burn,  who  adds  another  story  of  the  same  purport, 
and  told  by  Roosevelt  himself. 

Another  old  comrade  wrote  him  from  jail  in  Ari 
zona:  "Dear  Colonel:  I  am  in  trouble.  I  shot  a  lady 
in  the  eye,  but  I  did  not  intend  to  hit  the  lady ;  I  was 
shooting  at  my  wife."  Roosevelt  had  large  charity 
for  sinners  of  this  type,  but  he  would  not  tolerate 
deceit  or  lying.  Thus,  when  a  Congressman  made 
charges  to  him  against  one  of  the  Wild  Western 
appointees  whom  he  accused  of  drinking  and  of 
gambling,  the  President  remarked  that  he  had  to 
take  into  consideration  the  moral  standards  of  the 
section,  where  a  man  who  gambled  or  who  drank 
was  not  necessarily  an  evil  person.  Then  the  Con 
gressman  pressed  his  charges  and  said  that  the  fellow 
had  been  in  prison  for  a  crime  a  good  many  years 
before.  This  roused  Roosevelt,  who  said,  "He  never 
told  me  about  that,"  and  he  immediately  telegraphed 
the  accused  for  an  explanation.  The  man  replied  that 
the  charge  was  true,  whereupon  the  President  at 
once  dismissed  him,  not  for  gambling  or  for  drinking, 
but  for  trying  to  hide  the  fact  that  he  had  once  been 
in  jail. 

In  these  days  of  upheaval,  when  the  most  ancient 
institutions  and  laws  are  put  in  question,  and 
anarchists  and  Bolshevists,  blind  like  Samson,  wish 


28o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

to  throw  down  the  very  pillars  on  which  Civilization 
rests,  the  Family,  the  fundamental  element  of  civil 
ized  life,  is  also  violently  attacked.  All  the  more 
precious,  therefore,  will  Theodore  Roosevelt's  exam 
ple  be,  as  an  upholder  of  the  Family.  He  showed  how 
essential  it  is  for  the  development  of  the  individual 
and  as  a  pattern  for  Society.  Only  through  the  Fam 
ily  can  come  the  deepest  joys  of  life  and  can  the  most 
intimate  duties  be  transmuted  into  joys.  As  son,  as 
husband,  as  father,  as  brother,  he  fulfilled  the  ideals 
of  each  of  those  relations,  and,  so  strong  was  his 
family  affection,  that,  while  still  a  comparatively 
young  man,  he  drew  to  him  as  a  patriarch  might,  not 
only  his  own  children,  but  his  kindred  in  many  de 
grees.  With  utter  truth  he  wrote,  "I  have  had  the 
happiest  home  life  of  any  man  I  have  ever  known." 
And  that,  as  we  who  were  his  friends  understood, 
was  to  him  the  highest  and  dearest  prize  which  life 
could  bestow. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

HITS  AND  MISSES 

IN  this  sketch  I  do  not  attempt  to  follow  chrono 
logical  order,  except  in  so  far  as  this  is  necessary 
to  make  clear  the  connection  between  lines  of  policy, 
or  to  define  the  structural  growth  of  character.  But 
in  Roosevelt's  life,  as  in  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  many 
events,  sometimes  important  events,  occurred  and 
had  much  notice  at  the  moment  and  then  faded  away 
and  left  no  lasting  mark.  Let  us  take  up  a  few  of  these 
which  reveal  the  President  from  different  angles. 

Since  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  the  Negro  Ques 
tion  had  brooded  over  the  South.  The  war  emanci 
pated  the  Southern  negroes  and  then  politics  came 
to  embitter  the  question.  Partly  to  gain  a  political 
advantage,  partly  as  some  visionaries  believed,  to  do 
justice,  and  partly  to  punish  the  Southerners,  the 
Northern  Republicans  gave  the  Southern  negroes 
equal  political  rights  with  the  whites.  They  even 
handed  over  the  government  of  some  of  the  States 
to  wholly  incompetent  blacks.  In  self-defense  the 
whites  terrorized  the  blacks  through  such  secret 
organizations  as  the  Ku-Klux  Klan,  and  recovered 
their  ascendancy  in  governing.  Later,  by  such  spe- 


282  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

clous  devices  as  the  Grandfathers'  Law,  they  pre 
vented  most  of  the  blacks  from  voting,  and  relieved 
themselves  of  the  trouble  of  maintaining  a  system 
of  intimidation.  The  real  difficulty  being  social  and 
racial,  to  mix  politics  with  it  was  to  envenom  it. 

Roosevelt  took  a  man  for  what  he  was  without 
regard  to  race,  creed,  or  color.  He  held  that  a  negro 
of  good  manners  and  education  ought  to  be  treated 
as  a  white  man  would  be  treated.  He  felt  keenly  the 
sting  of  ostracism  and  he  believed  that  if  the  South 
ern  whites  would  think  as  he  did  on  this  matter, 
they  might  the  quicker  solve  the  Negro  Question 
and  establish  human  if  not  friendly  relations  with 
the  blacks. 

The  negro  race  at  that  time  had  a  fine  spokesman 
in  Booker  T.  Washington,  a  man  who  had  been  born 
a  slave,  was  educated  at  the  Hampton  Institute, 
served  as  teacher  there,  and  then  founded  the 
Tuskeegee  Institute  for  teaching  negroes.  He  wisely 
saw  that  the  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  teach  them 
trades  and  farming,  by  which  they  could  earn  a  liv 
ing  and  make  themselves  useful  if  not  indispensable 
to  the  communities  in  which  they  settled.  He  did  not 
propose  to  start  off  to  lift  his  race  by  letting  them 
imagine  that  they  could  blossom  into  black  Shake- 
speares  and  dusky  Raphaels  in  a  single  generation. 
He  himself  was  a  man  of  tact,  prudence,  and  sagacity 


HITS  AND  MISSES  283 

with  trained  intelligence  and  a  natural  gift  of 
speaking. 

To  him  President  Roosevelt  turned  for  some  sug 
gestions  as  to  appointing  colored  persons  to  offices 
in  the  South.  It  happened  that  on  the  day  appointed 
for  a  meeting  Washington  reached  the  White  House 
shortly  before  luncheon  time,  and  that,  as  they  had 
not  finished  their  conference,  Roosevelt  asked  him 
to  stay  to  luncheon.  Washington  hesitated  politely. 
Roosevelt  insisted.  They  lunched,  finished  their  busi 
ness,  and  Washington  went  away.  When  this  per 
fectly  insignificant  fact  was  published  in  the  papers 
the  next  morning,  the  South  burst  into  a  storm  of 
indignation  and  abuse.  Some  of  the  Southern  jour 
nals  saw,  in  what  was  a  mere  routine  incident,  a  ter 
rible  portent,  foreboding  that  Roosevelt  planned  to 
put  the  negroes  back  to  control  the  Southern  whites. 
Others  alleged  the  milder  motive  that  he  was  fishing 
for  negro  votes.  The  common  type  of  fire-eaters  saw 
in  it  one  of  Roosevelt's  unpleasant  ways  of  having 
fun  by  insulting  the  South.  And  Southern  cartoon 
ists  took  an  ignoble,  feeble  retaliation  by  caricatur 
ing  even  Mrs.  Roosevelt. 

The  President  did  not  reply  publicly.  As  his  invi 
tation  to  Booker  Washington  was  wholly  unpremedi 
tated,  he  was  surprised  by  the  rage  which  it  caused 
among  Southerners.  But  he  was  clear-sighted  enough 


284  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

to  understand  that,  without  intending  it,  he  had 
made  a  mistake,  and  this  he  never  repeated.  Nothing 
is  more  elusive  than  racial  antipathy,  and  we  need 
not  wonder  that  a  man  like  Roosevelt  who,  although 
he  was  most  solicitous  not  to  hurt  persons'  feelings 
and  usually  acted,  unless  he  had  proof  to  the  con 
trary,  on  the  assumption  that  everybody  was  blessed 
with  a  modicum  of  good-will  and  common  sense, 
should  not  always  be  able  to  foresee  the  strange  in 
consistencies  into  which  the  antipathy  of  the  white 
Southerners  for  the  blacks  might  lead.  A  little  while 
later  there  was  a  religious  gathering  in  Washington 
of  Protestant-Episcopal  ministers.  They  had  a  recep 
tion  at  the  White  House.  Their  own  managers  made 
out  a  list  of  ministers  to  be  invited,  and  among  the 
guests  were  a  negro  archdeacon  and  his  wife,  and  the 
negro  rector  of  a  Maryland  parish.  Although  these 
persons  attended  the  reception,  the  Southern  whites 
burst  into  no  frenzy  of  indignation  against  the  Presi 
dent.  Who  could  steer  safely  amid  such  shoals? 1  The 
truth  is  that  no  President  since  Lincoln  had  a  kind 
lier  feeling  towards  the  South  than  Roosevelt  had. 
He  often  referred  proudly  to  the  fact  that  his  mother 
came  from  Georgia,  and  that  his  two  Bulloch  uncles 
fought  in  the  Confederate  Navy.  He  wished  to  bring 
back  complete  friendship  between  the  sections.  But 

1  Leupp,  231. 


HITS  AND  MISSES  285 

he  understood  the  difficulties,  as  his  explanation  to 
Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  the  historian,  in  1905, 
amply  proved.  He  agreed  fully  as  to  the  folly  of  the 
Congressional  scheme  of  reconstruction  based  on 
universal  negro  suffrage,  but  he  begged  Mr.  Rhodes 
not  to  forget  that  the  initial  folly  lay  with  the  South 
erners  themselves.  The  latter  said,  quite  properly, 
that  he  did  not  wonder  that  much  bitterness  still  re 
mained  in  the  breasts  of  the  Southern  people  about 
the  carpet-bag  negro  regime.  So  it  was  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  in  the  late  sixties  much  bitterness 
should  have  remained  in  the  hearts  of  the  Northern 
ers  over  the  remembrance  of  the  senseless  folly  and 
wickedness  of  the  Southerners  in  the  early  sixties. 
Roosevelt  felt  that  those  persons  who  most  heartily 
agreed  that  as  it  was  the  presence  of  the  negro  which 
made  the  problem,  and  that  slavery  was  merely  the 
worst  possible  method  of  solving  it,  we  must  therefore 
hold  up  to  reprobation,  as  guilty  of  doing  one  of  the 
worst  deeds  which  history  records,  those  men  who 
tried  to  break  up  this  Union  because  they  were  not 
allowed  to  bring  slavery  and  the  negro  into  our  new 
territory.  Every  step  which  followed,  from  freeing 
the  slave  to  enfranchising  him,  was  due  only  to  the 
North  being  slowly  and  reluctantly  forced  to  act  by 
the  South's  persistence  in  its  folly  and  wickedness. 
The  President  could  not  say  these  things  in  pub- 


286  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

lie  because  they  tended,  when  coming  from  a  man  in 
public  place,  to  embitter  people.  But  Rhodes  was 
writing  what  Roosevelt  hoped  would  prove  the  great 
permanent  history  of  the  period,  and  he  said  that  it 
would  be  a  misfortune  for  the  country,  and  especially 
a  misfortune  for  the  South,  if  they  were  allowed  to 
confuse  right  and  wrong  in  perspective. 

He  added  that  his  difficulties  with  the  Southern 
people  had  come  not  from  the  North,  but  from  the 
South.  He  had  never  done  anything  that  was  not  for 
their  interest.  At  present,  he  added,  they  were,  as  a 
whole,  speaking  well  of  him.  When  they  would  begin 
again  to  speak  ill,  he  did  not  know,  but  in  either  case 
his  duty  was  equally  clear.1 

Inviting  Booker  Washington  to  the  White  House 
was  a  counsel  of  perfection  which  we  must  consider 
one  of  Roosevelt's  misses.  Quite  different  was  the 
voyage  of  the  Great  Fleet,  planned  by  him  and  car 
ried  out  without  hitch  or  delay. 

We  have  seen  that  from  his  interest  in  American 
naval  history,  which  began  before  he  left  Harvard, 
he  came  to  take  a  very  deep  interest  in  the  Navy  it 
self,  and  when  he  was  Assistant  Secretary,  he  worked 
night  and  day  to  complete  its  preparation  for  enter 
ing  the  Spanish  War.  From  the  time  he  became  Presi 
dent,  he  urged  upon  Congress  and  the  country  the 

1  February  20,  1905. 


HITS  AND  MISSES  287 

need  of  maintaining  a  fleet  adequate  to  ward  off  any 
dangers  to  which  we  might  be  exposed.  In  season 
and  out  of  season  he  preached,  with  the  ardor  of  a 
propagandist,  his  gospel  that  the  Navy  is  the  surest 
guarantor  of  peace  which  this  country  possesses. 
By  dint  of  urging  he  persuaded  Congress  to  consent 
to  lay  down  one  battleship  of  the  newest  type  a  year. 
Congress  was  not  so  much  reluctant  as  indifferent. 
Even  the  lesson  of  the  Spanish  War  failed  to  teach 
the  Nation's  law-makers,  or  the  Nation  itself,  that 
we  must  have  a  Navy  to  protect  us  if  we  intended  to 
play  the  role  of  a  World  Power.  The  American  people 
instinctively  dreaded  militarism,  and  so  they  resisted 
consenting  to  naval  or  military  preparations  which 
might  expand  into  a  great  evil  such  as  they  saw 
controlling  the  nations  of  Europe. 

Nevertheless  Roosevelt,  as  usual,  could  not  be  de 
terred  by  opposition;  and  when  the  Hague  Confer 
ence  in  1907,  through  the  veto  of  Germany,  refused 
to  limit  armaments  by  sea  and  land,  he  warned  Con 
gress  that  one  new  battleship  a  year  would  not  do, 
that  they  must  build  four.  Meanwhile,  he  had  pushed 
to  completion  a  really  formidable  American  Fleet, 
which  assembled  in  Hampton  Roads  on  December  i, 
1907,  and  ten  days  later  weighed  anchor  for  parts  un 
known.  There  were  sixteen  battleships,  commanded 
by  Rear  Admiral  Robley  D.  Evans.  Every  ship  was 


288  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

new,  having  been  built  since  the  Spanish  War.  The 
President  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  many  notables 
reviewed  the  Fleet  from  the  President's  yacht  May 
flower,  as  it  passed  out  to  sea.  Later,  the  country 
learned  that  the  Fleet  was  to  sail  round  Cape  Horn, 
to  New  Zealand  and  Australia,  up  the  Pacific  to  San 
Francisco,  then  across  to  Japan,  and  so  steer  home 
ward  through  the  Indian  Ocean,  the  Suez  Canal,  and 
the  Mediterranean  to  Gibraltar,  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  back  to  Hampton  Roads. 

The  American  public  did  not  quite  know  what  to 
make  of  this  dramatic  gesture.  Roosevelt's  critics 
said,  of  course,  that  it  was  the  first  overt  display  of 
his  combativeness,  and  that  from  this  he  would  go  on 
to  create  a  great  army  and  be  ready,  at  the  slightest 
provocation,  to  attack  any  foreign  Power.  In  fact, 
however,  the  sending  of  the  Great  Fleet,  which  was 
wholly  his  project,  was  designed  by  him  to  strengthen 
the  prospect  of  peace  for  the  United  States.  Through 
it,  he  gave  a  concrete  illustration  of  his  maxim: 
"Speak  softly,  but  carry  a  big  stick."  The  Panama 
Canal  was  then  half  dug  and  would  be  finished  in  a 
few  years.  Distant  nations  thought  of  this  country  as 
of  a  land  peopled  by  dollar-chasers,  too  absorbed  in 
getting  rich  to  think  of  providing  defense  for  them 
selves.  The  fame  of  Dewey's  exploit  at  Manila  Bay 
had  ceased  to  strike  wonder  among  foreign  peoples, 


HITS  AND  MISSES  289 

after  they  heard  how  small  and  almost  contemptible, 
judging  by  the  new  standards,  the  Squadron  was  by 
which  he  won  his  victory.  Japan,  the  rising  young 
giant  of  the  Orient,  felt  already  strong  enough  to 
resent  any  supposed  insult  from  the  United  States. 
Germany  had  embarked  on  her  wild  naval  policy  of 
creating  a  fleet  which  would  soon  be  able  to  cope 
with  that  of  England. 

When,  however,  the  Great  Fleet  steamed  into 
Yokohama  or  Bombay  or  any  other  port,  it  furnished 
a  visible  evidence  of  the  power  of  the  country  from 
which  it  came.  We  could  not  send  an  army  to  furnish 
the  same  object-lesson.  But  the  Fleet  must  have 
opened  the  eyes  of  any  foreign  Jingoes  who  supposed 
that  they  might  send  over  with  impunity  their  bat 
tleships  and  attack  our  ports.  In  this  way  it  served 
directly  to  discourage  war  against  us,  and  accord 
ingly  it  was  a  powerful  agent  for  peace.  Spectacular 
the  voyage  was  without  question,  like  so  many  of 
Roosevelt's  acts,  but  if  you  analyze  it  soberly,  do  you 
not  admit  that  it  was  the  one  obvious,  simple  way  by 
which  to  impress  upon  an  uncertain  and  rapacious 
world  the  fact  that  the  United  States  had  man 
power  as  well  as  money-power,  and  that  they  were 
prepared  to  repel  all  enemies? 

On  February  22,  1909,  the  White  Fleet  steamed 
back  to  Hampton  Roads  and  was  received  by  Presi- 


290  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

dent  Roosevelt.  It  had  performed  a  great  moral 
achievement.  It  had  also  raised  the  efficiency  of  its 
officers  and  the  discipline  of  its  crews  to  the  high 
est  point.  There  had  been  no  accident;  not  a  scratch 
on  any  ship. 

''Isn't  it  magnificent?"  said  Roosevelt,  as  he 
toasted  the  Admirals  and  Captains  in  the  cabin  of 
the  Mayflower.  "Nobody  after  this  will  forget  that 
the  American  coast  is  on  the  Pacific  as  well  as  on  the 
Atlantic."  Ten  days  later  he  left  the  White  House, 
and  after  he  left,  the  prestige  of  the  American  Fleet 
was  slowly  frittered  away. 

So  important  is  it,  if  we  would  form  a  just  esti 
mate  of  Roosevelt,  to  understand  his  attitude  to 
wards  war,  that  I  must  refer  to  the  subject  briefly 
here.  One  of  the  most  authoritative  observers  of  in 
ternational  politics  now  living,  a  man  who  has  also 
had  the  best  opportunity  for  studying  the  chief 
statesmen  of  our  age,  wrote  me  after  Roosevelt's 
death:  "I  deeply  grieve  with  you  in  the  loss  of  our 
friend.  He  was  an  extraordinary  man.  The  only  point 
in  which  I  ever  found  myself  seriously  differing  from 
him  was  in  the  value  he  set  upon  war.  He  did  not 
seem  to  realize  how  great  an  evil  it  is,  and  in  how 
many  ways,  fascinated  as  he  was  by  the  virtues  which 
it  sometimes  called  out;  but  in  this  respect,  also,  I 
think  his  views  expanded  and  mellowed  as  time 


HITS  AND  MISSES  291 

went  on.  His  mind  was  so  capacious  as  to  take  in 
Old- World  affairs  in  a  sense  which  very  few  peo 
ple  outside  Europe,  since  Hamilton,  have  been  able 
to  do." 

Now  the  truth  is  that  neither  the  eminent  person 
who  wrote  this  letter,  nor  many  others  among  us, 
saw  as  clearly  during  the  first  decade  of  this  century 
as  Roosevelt  saw  that  war  was  not  a  remote  possibil 
ity,  but  a  very  real  danger.  I  think  that  he  was  al 
most  the  first  in  the  United  States  to  feel  the  menace 
of  Germany  to  the  entire  world.  He  knew  the  strength 
of  her  army,  and  when  she  began  to  build  rapidly  a 
powerful  navy,  he  understood  that  the  likelihood  of 
her  breaking  the  peace  was  more  than  doubled;  for 
with  the  fleet  she  could  at  pleasure  go  up  and  down 
the  seas,  picking  quarrels  as  she  went.  If  war  came 
on  a  great  scale  in  Europe,  our  Republic  would 
probably  be  involved;  we  should  either  take  sides 
and  so  have  to  furnish  a  contingent,  or  we  should 
restrict  our  operations  to  self-defense.  In  either  case 
we  must  be  prepared. 

But  Roosevelt  recognized  also  that  on  the  comple 
tion  of  the  Panama  Canal  we  might  be  exposed  to 
much  international  friction,  and  unless  we  were 
ready  to  defend  the  Canal  and  its  approaches,  a  For 
eign  Power  might  easily  do  it  great  damage  or  wrest 
it  from  us,  at  least  for  a  time.  Here,  too,  was  another 


292  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

motive  for  facing  the  possibility  of  war.  We  were 
growing  up  in  almost  childish  trust  in  a  world  filled 
with  warlike  nations,  which  regarded  war  not  only  as 
the  obvious  way  in  which  to  settle  disputes,  but  as 
the  easiest  way  to  seize  the  territory  and  the  wealth 
of  rich  neighbors  who  could  not  defend  themselves. 

This  being  the  condition  of  life  as  our  country  had 
to  lead  it,  we  were  criminally  remiss  in  not  taking 
precautions.  But  Roosevelt  went  farther  than  this; 
he  believed  that,  war  or  no  war,  a  nation  must  be  able 
to  defend  itself;  so  must  every  individual  be.  Every 
youth  should  have  sufficient  military  training  to  fit 
him  to  take  his  place  at  a  moment's  notice  in  the  na 
tional  armament.  This  did  not  mean  the  maintenance 
of  a  large  standing  army,  or  the  adoption  of  a  soul- 
and  character-killing  system  of  militarism  like  the 
German.  It  meant  giving  training  to  every  youth 
who  was  physically  sound  which  would  develop  and 
strengthen  his  body,  teach  him  obedience,  and  im 
press  upon  him  his  patriotic  duty  to  his  country. 

I  was  among  those  who,  twenty  years  ago,  feared 
that  Roosevelt's  projects  were  inspired  by  innate 
pugnacity  which  he  could  not  outgrow.  Now,  in  this 
year  of  his  death,  I  recognize  that  he  was  right,  and 
I  believe  that  there  is  no  one,  on  whom  the  lesson  of 
the  Atrocious  War  has  not  been  lost,  who  does  not 
believe  in  his  gospel  of  military  training,  both  for  its 


HITS  AND  MISSES  293 

value  in  promoting  physical  fitness  and  health  and  in 
providing  the  country  with  competent  defenders. 
Roosevelt  detested  as  much  as  any  one  the  horrors  of 
war,  but,  as  he  had  too  much  reason  to  remind  the 
American  people  shortly  before  his  death,  there  are 
things  worse  than  war.  And  when  in  1919  President 
Charles  W.  Eliot  becomes  the  chief  advocate  of  uni 
versal  military  training,  we  need  not  fear  that  it  is 
synonymous  with  militarism. 

On  one  subject  —  a  protective  tariff  -  -  I  think 
that  Roosevelt  was  less  satisfactory  than  on  any 
other.  At  Harvard,  in  our  college  days,  John  Stuart 
Mill's  ideas  on  economics  prevailed,  and  they  were 
ably  expounded  by  Charles  F.  Dunbar,  who  then 
stood  first  among  American  economists.  Being  a 
consistent  Individualist,  and  believing  that  liberty 
is  a  principle  which  applies  to  commerce,  not  less 
than  to  intellectual  and  moral  freedom,  Mill,  of 
course,  insisted  on  Free  Trade.  But  after  Roosevelt 
joined  the  Republican  Party  —  in  the  straw  vote 
for  President,  in  1880,  he  had  voted  like  a  large  ma 
jority  of  undergraduates  for  Bayard,  a  Democrat  — 
he  adopted  Protection  as  the  right  principle  in  theory 
and  in  practice.  The  teachings  of  Alexander  Hamil 
ton,  the  wonderful  spokesman  of  Federalism,  the 
champion  of  a  strong  Government  which  should  be 
beneficent  because  it  was  unselfish  and  enlightened, 


294  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

captivated  and  filled  him.  In  1886,  in  his  Life  of  Ben- 
ton,  he  wrote:  ''Free  traders  are  apt  to  look  at  the 
tariff  from  a  sentimental  standpoint;  but  it  is  in 
reality  a  purely  business  matter  and  should  be  de 
cided  solely  on  grounds  of  expediency.  Political  econ 
omists  have  pretty  generally  agreed  that  protection 
is  vicious  in  theory  and  harmful  in  practice;  but  if 
the  majority  of  the  people  in  interest  wish  it,  and  it 
affects  only  themselves,  there  is  no  earthly  reason 
why  they  should  not  be  allowed  to  try  the  experi 
ment  to  their  heart's  content."1 

Perhaps  we  ought  to  infer  from  this  extract  that 
Roosevelt,  as  an  historical  critic,  strove  to  preserve 
an  open  mind;  as  an  ardent  Republican,  however, 
he  never  wavered  in  his  support  of  the  tariff.  Even 
his  sense  of  humor  permitted  him  to  swallow  with 
out  a  smile  the  demagogue's  cant  about  "infant  in 
dustries,"  or  the  raising  of  the  tariff  after  election 
by  the  Republicans  who  had  promised  to  reduce  it. 
To  those  of  us  who  for  many  years  regarded  the  tariff 
as  the  dividing  line  between  the  parties,  his  stand 
was  most  disappointing.  And  when  the  head  of  one 
of  the  chief  Trusts  in  America  cynically  blurted  out, 
"The  Tariff  is  the  mother  of  Trusts,"  we  hoped  that 
Roosevelt,  who  had  then  begun  his  stupendous  battle 
with  the  Trusts,  would  deal  them  a  staggering  blow 

1  Roosevelt:  Thomas  H.  Benton,  67.  American  Statesmen  Series. 


HITS  AND  MISSES  295 

by  shattering  the  tariff.  But,  greatly  to  our  chagrin, 
he  did  nothing. 

His  enemies  tried  to  explain  his  callousness  to  this 
reform  by  hinting  that  he  had  some  personal  interest 
at  stake,  or  that  he  was  under  obligations  to  tariff 
magnates.  Nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  these 
innuendoes;  from  the  first  of  his  career  to  the  last, 
no  man  ever  brought  proof  that  he  had  directly  or 
indirectly  secured  Roosevelt's  backing  by  question 
able  means.  And  there  were  times  enough  when  pas 
sions  ran  so  high  that  any  one  who  could  produce  an 
iota  of  such  testimony  would  have  done  so.  The  sim 
ple  fact  is,  that  in  looking  over  the  field  of  important 
questions  which  Roosevelt  believed  must  be  met 
by  new  legislation,  he  looked  on  the  tariff  as  unim 
portant  in  comparison  with  railroads,  and  conserva 
tion,  and  the  measures  for  public  health.  I  think, 
also,  that  he  never  studied  the  question  thoroughly; 
he  threw  over  Mill's  Individualism  early  in  his  public 
career  and  with  it  went  Mill's  political  economy.  As 
late  as  December,  1912,  after  the  affronting  Payne- 
Aldrich  Tariff  Act  had  been  passed  under  his  Repub 
lican  successor,  I  reminded  Roosevelt  that  I  had 
never  voted  for  him  because  I  did  not  approve  of 
his  tariff  policy.  To  which  he  replied,  almost  in  the 
words  of  the  Benton  extract  in  1886,  "My  dear  boy, 
the  tariff  is  only  a  question  of  expediency." 


296  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

In  this  field  also  I  fear  that  we  must  score  a  miss 
against  him. 

Cavour  used  to  say  that  he  did  not  need  to  resort 
to  craft,  which  was  supposed  to  be  a  statesman's 
favorite  instrument,  he  simply  told  the  truth  and 
everybody  was  deceived.  Roosevelt  might  have  said 
the  same  thing.  His  critics  were  always  on  the  look 
out  for  some  ulterior  motive,  some  trick,  or  cunning 
thrust,  in  what  he  did;  consequently  they  misjudged 
him,  for  he  usually  did  the  most  direct  thing  in  the 
most  direct  way. 

The  Brownsville  Affair  proved  this.  On  the  night 
of  August  13,  1906,  several  colored  soldiers  stationed 
at  Fort  Brown,  Texas,  stole  from  their  quarters  into 
the  near-by  town  of  Brownsville  and  shot  up  the 
inhabitants,  against  whom  they  had  a  grudge.  As 
soon  as  the  news  of  the  outbreak  reached  the  fort, 
the  rest  of  the  colored  garrison  was  called  out  to 
quell  it,  and  the  guilty  soldiers,  under  cover  of  dark 
ness,  joined  their  companions  and  were  undiscovered. 
Next  day  the  commander  began  an  investigation, 
but  as  none  of  the  culprits  confessed,  the  President 
discharged  nearly  all  of  the  three  companies.  There 
upon  his  critics  insinuated  that  Roosevelt  had  in 
dulged  his  race  hatred  of  the  blacks;  a  few  years 
before,  many  of  these  same  critics  had  accused  him 
of  wishing  to  insult  the  Southern  whites  by  inviting 


HITS  AND  MISSES  297 

Booker  Washington  to  lunch.  The  reason  for  his  ac 
tion  with  the  Brownsville  criminals  was  so  clear  that 
it  did  not  need  to  be  stated.  He  intended  that  every 
soldier  or  sailor  who  wore  the  uniform  of  the  United 
States,  be  he  white,  yellow,  or  black,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  sully  that  uniform  and  go  unpunished. 
He  felt  the  stain  on  the  service  keenly;  in  spite  of 
denunciation  he  trusted  that  the  common  sense  of 
the  Nation  would  eventually  uphold  him,  as  it  did. 

A  few  months  later  he  came  to  Cambridge  to 
make  his  famous  "  Mollycoddle  Speech,"  and  in 
greeting  him,  three  or  four  of  us  asked  him  jokingly, 
"How  about  Brownsville?"  "Brownsville?"  he  re 
plied,  laughing;  "  Brownsville  will  soon  be  forgotten, 
but  'Dear  Maria'  will  stick  to  me  all  my  life." 

This  referred  to  another  annoyance  which  had 
recently  bothered  him.  He  had  always  been  used  to 
talk  among  friends  about  public  matters  and  per 
sons  with  amazing  unreserve.  He  took  it  for  granted 
that  those  to  whom  he  spoke  would  regard  his  frank 
remarks  as  confidential ;  being  honorable  himself,  he 
assumed  a  similar  sense  of  honor  in  his  listeners. 
In  one  instance,  however,  he  was  deceived.  Among 
the  guests  at  the  White  House  were  a  gentleman 
and  his  wife.  The  latter  was  a  convert  to  Roman 
Catholicism,  and  she  had  not  only  all  the  proverbial 
zeal  of  a  convert,  but  an  amount  of  indiscretion 


298  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

which  seems  incredible  in  any  one.  She  often  led  the 
conversation  to  Roman  Catholic  subjects,  and  es 
pecially  to  the  discussion  of  who  was  likely  to  be  the 
next  American  Cardinal.  President  Roosevelt  had 
great  respect  for  Archbishop  Ireland,  and  he  said, 
frankly,  that  he  should  be  glad  to  see  the  red  hat  go 
to  him.  The  lady's  husband  was  appointed  to  a  for 
eign  Embassy,  and  they  were  both  soon  thrown  into 
an  Ultramontane  atmosphere,  where  clerical  intrigues 
had  long  furnished  one  of  the  chief  amusements 
of  a  vapid  and  corrupt  Court.  The  lady,  who,  of 
course,  could  not  have  realized  the  impropriety, 
made  known  the  President's  regard  for  Archbishop 
Ireland.  She  even  had  letters  to  herself  beginning 
"  Dear  Maria,"  to  prove  the  intimate  terms  on  which 
she  and  her  husband  stood  with  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and 
to  suggest  how  important  a  personage  she  was  in  his 
estimation.  Assured,  as  she  thought,  of  her  influence 
in  Washington,  she  seems  also  to  have  aspired  to 
equal  influence  in  the  Vatican.  That  would  not  be 
the  first  occasion  on  which  Cardinals'  hats  had  been 
bestowed  through  the  benign  feminine  intercession. 
Reports  from  Rome  were  favorable;  Archbishop 
Ireland's  prospects  looked  rosy. 

But  the  post  of  Cardinal  is  so  eminent  that  there 
are  always  several  candidates  for  each  vacancy.  I  do 
not  know  whether  or  not  it  came  about  through  one 


HITS  AND  MISSES  299 

of  Archbishop  Ireland's  rivals,  or  through  "Dear 
Maria's"  own  indiscretion,  but  the  fact  leaked  out 
that  President  Roosevelt  was  personally  interested 
in  Archbishop  Ireland's  success.  That  settled  the 
Archbishop.  The  Hierarchy  would  never  consent  to 
be  influenced  by  an  American  President,  who  was 
also  a  Protestant.  It  might  take  instructions  from 
the  Emperor  of  Austria  or  the  King  of  Spain ;  it  had 
even  allowed  the  German  Kaiser,  also  a  Protestant, 
indirectly  but  effectually  to  block  the  election  of 
Cardinal  Rampolla  to  be  Pope  in  1903;  but  the  hint 
that  the  Archbishop  of  St.  Paul,  Minnesota,  might 
be  made  Cardinal  because  the  American  President 
respected  him,  could  not  be  tolerated.  The  Presi 
dent's  letters  beginning  "Dear  Maria"  went  gayly 
through  the  newspapers  of  the  world,  and  the  man 
in  the  street  everywhere  wondered  how  Roosevelt 
could  have  been  so  indiscreet  as  to  have  trusted  so 
imprudent  a  zealot.  "  Dear  Maria"  and  her  husband 
were  recalled  from  their  Embassy  and  put  out  of 
reach  of  committing  further  indiscretions  of  that 
sort.  Archbishop  Ireland  never  became  Cardinal. 
In  spite  of  the  President's  forebodings,  the  "Dear 
Maria"  incident  did  not  cling  to  him  all  his  life,  but 
sank  into  oblivion,  while  the  world,  busied  with 
matters  of  real  importance,  rushed  on  towards  a 
great  catastrophe.  Proofs  that  a  man  or  a  woman 


300  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

can  do  very  foolish  things  are  so  common  that  "  Dear 
Maria"  could  not  win  lasting  fame  by  hers. 

I  do  not  think,  however,  that  this  experience 
taught  Roosevelt  reticence.  He  did  not  lose  his  faith 
that  a  sense  of  honor  was  widespread,  and  would 
silence  the  tongues  of  the  persons  whom  he  talked  to 
in  confidence. 

No  President  ever  spoke  so  openly  to  newspaper 
men  as  he  did.  He  told  them  many  a  secret  with  only 
the  warning,  ''Mind,  this  is  private,"  and  none  of 
them  betrayed  him.  When  he  entered  the  White 
House  he  gathered  all  the  newspaper  men  round 
him,  and  said  that  no  mention  was  to  be  made  of 
Mrs.  Roosevelt,  or  of  any  detail  of  their  family  life, 
while  they  lived  there.  If  this  rule  were  broken,  he 
would  refuse  for  the  rest  of  his  term  to  allow  the 
representative  of  the  paper  which  published  the  un 
warranted  report  to  enter  the  White  House,  or  to 
receive  any  of  the  President's  communications.  This 
rule  also  was  religiously  observed,  with  the  result 
that  Mrs.  Roosevelt  was  spared  the  disgust  and  in 
dignity  of  a  vulgar  publicity,  which  had  thrown  its 
lurid  light  on  more  than  one  "First  Lady  of  the 
Land"  in  previous  administrations,  and  even  on  the 
innocent  Baby  McKee,  President  Harrison's  grand 
child. 

We  cannot  too  often  bear  in  mind  that  Theodore 


HITS  AND  MISSES  301 

Roosevelt  never  forgot  the  Oneness  of  Society.  If  he 
aimed  at  correcting  an  industrial  or  financial  abuse 
by  special  laws,  he  knew  that  this  work  could  be 
partial  only.  It  might  promote  the  health  of  the 
entire  body,  but  it  was  not  equivalent  to  sanifying 
that  entire  body.  There  was  no  general  remedy.  A 
plaster  applied  to  a  skin  cut  does  not  cure  an  internal 
disease.  But  he  watched  the  unexpected  effects  of 
laws  and  saw  how  that  influence  spread  from  one 
field  to  another. 

Roosevelt  traced  closely  the  course  of  Law  and 
Custom  to  their  ultimate  objects,  the  family  and  the 
individual.  In  discussing  the  matter  with  Mr.  Rhodes 
he  cordially  agreed  with  what  the  historian  said  about 
our  American  rich  men.  He  insisted  that  the  same 
thing  held  true  of  our  politicians,  even  the  worst: 
that  the  average  Roman  rich  man,  like  the  average 
Roman  public  man,  of  the  end  of  the  Republic  and  of 
the  beginning  of  the  Empire,  makes  the  correspond 
ing  man  of  our  own  time  look  like  a  self-denying, 
conscientious  Puritan.  He  did  not  think  very  highly 
of  the  American  multi-millionaire,  nor  of  his  wife, 
sons,  and  daughters  when  compared  with  some  other 
types  of  our  citizens;  even  in  ability  the  plutocrat 
did  not  seem  to  Roosevelt  to  show  up  very  strongly 
save  in  his  own  narrowly  limited  field;  and  he  and 
his  womanhood,  and  those  of  less  fortune  who  mod- 


302  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

eled  their  lives  upon  his  and  upon  the  lives  of  his 
wife  and  children,  struck  Roosevelt  as  taking  very 
little  advantage  of  their  opportunities.  But  to  de 
nounce  them  with  hysterical  exaggeration  as  re 
sembling  the  unspeakable  tyrants  and  debauchees 
of  classic  times,  was  simple  nonsense. 

Roosevelt  hoped  he  had  been  of  some  assistance 
in  moving  our  people  along  the  line  Mr.  Rhodes 
mentioned;  that  is,  along  the  line  of  a  sane,  moder 
ate  purpose  to  supervise  the  business  use  of  wealth 
and  to  curb  its  excesses,  while  keeping  as  far  aloof 
from  the  policy  of  the  visionary  and  demagogue  as 
from  the  policy  of  the  wealthy  corruptionist. 


C 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR 

RITICS  frequently  remark  that  Roosevelt  was 
the  most  masterful  politician  of  his  time,  and 
what  we  have  already  seen  of  his  career  should  jus 
tify  this  assertion.  We  need,  however,  to  define  what 
we  mean  by  "  politician."  Boss  Platt,  of  New  York, 
was  a  politician,  but  far  removed  from  Roosevelt. 
Platt  and  all  similar  dishonest  manipulators  of 
voters  —  and  the  dishonesty  took  many  forms  - 
held  their  power,  not  by  principles,  but  by  exerting 
an  unprincipled  influence  over  the  masses  who  sup 
ported  them.  Roosevelt,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
great  politician  because  he  saw  earlier  than  most 
men  certain  fundamental  principles  which  he  re 
solved  to  carry  through  whether  the  Bosses  or  their 
supporters  liked  it  or  not.  In  a  word  he  believed  in 
principles  rather  than  in  men.  He  was  a  statesman, 
and  like  the  statesman  he  understood  that  half  a 
loaf  is  often  better  than  no  bread  and  that,  though 
he  must  often  compromise  and  conciliate,  he  must 
surrender  nothing  essential. 

As  a  result,  his  career  as  Assemblyman,  as  Civil 
Service  Commissioner,  as  Police  Commissioner  of 


304  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

New  York  City,  as  Governor  of  New  York  State, 
and  as  President,  seems  a  continuous  rising  scale  of 
success.  We  see  the  achievement  which  swallows  up 
the  baffling  difficulties  and  the  stubborn  opposition. 
These  we  must  always  remember  if  we  would  meas 
ure  the  extent  of  the  victory.  It  was  Roosevelt's  per 
sistence  and  his  refusal  to  be  baffled  or  turned  aside 
which  really  made  him  seem  to  triumph  in  all  his 
work. 

He  never  doubted,  as  I  have  often  said,  the  neces 
sity  of  party  organization  in  our  political  system, 
although  he  recognized  the  tendency  to  corruption 
in  it,  the  unreasoning  loyalty  which  it  bred  and  its 
substitution  of  Party  for  Country  in  its  teaching. 
He  had  known  something  of  political  machine  meth 
ods  at  Albany.  After  he  became  President,  he  knew 
them  through  and  through  as  they  were  practiced 
on  national  proportions  at  Washington.  The  Machine 
had  hoped  to  shelve  him  by  making  him  Vice- 
President,  and  in  spite  of  it  he  suddenly  emerged  as 
President.  This  confrontation  would  have  been  em 
barrassing  on  both  sides  if  Roosevelt  had  not  dis 
played  unexpected  tact.  He  avowed  his  purpose  of 
carrying  out  McKinley's  policies  and  he  kept  it 
faithfully,  thus  relieving  the  Machine  of  much 
anxiety.  By  his  straightforwardness  he  even  won  the 
approval  of  Boss  Quay,  the  lifelong  political  bandit 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  305 

from  Pennsylvania,  who  went  to  him  and  said  in 
substance :  '  I  believe  that  you  are  square  and  I  will 
stand  by  you  until  you  prove  otherwise.'  Roosevelt 
made  no  bargain,  but  like  a  sensible  man  he  did  not 
forbid  Quay  from  voting  on  his  side.  Personally, 
also,  Quay's  lack  of  hypocrisy  attracted  him;  for 
Quay  never  pretended  that  he  was  in  politics  to  pro 
mote  the  Golden  Rule  and  he  had  skirted  so  close  to 
the  Penal  Code  that  he  knew  how  it  looked  and  how 
he  could  evade  it.  Senator  Hanna,  the  Ohio  political 
Boss,  who  had  made  McKinley  President  by  ways 
which  cannot  all  be  documented  except  by  persons 
who  have  examined  the  Recording  Angel's  book  (and 
research  students  of  that  original  source  never  re 
turn),  was  another  towering  figure  whom  Roosevelt 
had  to  get  along  with.  He  found  out  how  to  do  it, 
and  to  do  it  so  amicably  that  it  was  reported  that 
he  breakfasted  often  with  the  Ohio  Senator  and  that 
they  even  ate  griddle-cakes  and  scrapple  together. 
The  Senator  evidently  no  more  understood  the  alert 
and  fascinating  young  President  than  we  under 
stand  what  is  going  on  in  the  brain  of  a  playful 
young  tiger,  but  instinct  warned  him  that  this  mys 
terious  young  creature,  electrified  by  a  thousand 
talents,  was  dangerous  and  must  be  held  down.  And 
so  with  the  other  members  of  the  Republican  Ma 
chine  which  ran  both  Houses  of  Congress  and  ex- 


306  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

pected  to  run  the  undisciplined  President  too.  Roose 
velt  studied  them  all  and  discovered  how  to  deal 
with  each. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1904,  everybody  be 
gan  to  discuss  the  next  Presidential  campaign.  Who 
should  be  the  Republican  candidate?  The  President, 
naturally,  wished  to  be  elected  and  thereby  to  hold 
the  office  in  his  own  right  and  not  by  the  chance  of 
assassination.  Senator  Hanna  surprised  many  of  the 
politicians  by  bagging  a  good  many  delegates  for 
himself.  He  probably  did  not  desire  to  be  President ; 
like  Warwick  he  preferred  the  glory  of  king-maker 
to  that  of  king;  but  he  was  a  shrewd  business  man 
who  knew  the  value  of  having  goods  which,  although 
he  did  not  care  for  them  himself,  he  might  exchange 
for  others.  I  doubt  whether  he  deluded  himself  into 
supposing  that  the  American  people  would  elect  so 
conspicuous  a  representative  of  the  Big  Interests  as 
he  was,  to  be  President,  but  he  knew  that  the  for 
tunes  of  candidates  in  political  conventions  are  un 
certain,  and  that  if  he  had  a  considerable  body  of 
delegates  to  swing  from  one  man  to  another,  he 
might,  if  his  choice  won,  become  the  power  behind 
the  new  throne  as  he  had  been  behind  McKinley's. 
And  if  we  could  suspect  him  of  humor  he  may  have 
enjoyed  fun  to  a  mild  degree  in  keeping  the  irrepress 
ible  Roosevelt  in  a  state  of  suspense. 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  307 

Senator  Hanna's  death,  however,  in  March,  1904, 
removed  the  only  competitor  whom  Roosevelt  could 
have  regarded  as  dangerous.  Thenceforth  he  held 
the  field,  and  yet,  farseeing  politician  though  he  was, 
he  did  not  feel  sure.  The  Convention  at  Chicago 
nominated  him,  virtually,  by  acclamation.  In  the 
following  months  of  a  rather  slow  campaign  he  had 
fits  of  depression,  although  all  signs  pointed  to  his 
success.  Talking  with  Hay  as  late  as  October  30, 
he  said:  "It  seems  a  cheap  sort  of  thing  to  say, 
and  I  would  not  say  it  to  other  people,  but  laying 
aside  my  own  great  personal  interests  and  hopes,  — 
for  of  course  I  desire  intensely  to  succeed,  -  -  I  have 
the  greatest  pride  that  in  this  fight  we  are  not  only 
making  it  on  clearly  avowed  principles,  but  we  have 
the  principles  and  the  record  to  avow.  How  can  I 
help  being  a  little  proud  when  I  contrast  the  men 
and  the  considerations  by  which  I  am  attacked,  and 
those  by  which  I  am  defended?"  1 

Just  at  the  end,  the  campaign  was  enlivened  by 
the  attack  which  the  Democratic  candidate,  Judge 
Alton  B.  Parker,  made  upon  his  opponent.  He 
charged  that  Mr.  Cortelyou,  the  manager  of  the 
Republican  campaign,  had  received  great  sums  of 
money  from  the  Big  Interests,  and  that  he  had,  in 
deed,  been  appointed  manager  because,  from  his 

1  W.  R.  Thayer:  John  Hay,  n,  356,  357. 


3o8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

previous  experience  as  Secretary  of  the  Department 
of  Commerce,  he  had  special  information  in  regard 
to  malefactors  of  great  wealth  which  would  enable 
him  to  coerce  them  to  good  purpose  for  the  Re 
publican  Corruption  Fund.  President  Roosevelt 
published  a  letter  denying  Judge  Parker's  state 
ments  as  "unqualifiedly  and  atrociously  false."  If 
Judge  Parker's  attack  had  any  effect  on  the  election 
it  was  to  reduce  his  own  votes.  Later,  Edward  H. 
Harriman,  the  railroad  magnate,  tried  to  smirch 
Roosevelt  by  accusing  him  of  seeking  Harriman 's 
help  in  1904,  but  this  charge  also  was  never  sustained. 
At  the  election  on  November  8,  Roosevelt  had  a 
majority  of  nearly  two  million  and  a  half  votes  out 
of  thirteen  million  and  a  half  'cast,  thus  securing  by 
large  odds  the  greatest  popular  majority  any  Presi 
dent  has  had.  The  Electoral  College  gave  him  336 
votes  and  Parker  140.  That  same  evening,  his  vic 
tory  being  assured,  he  dictated  the  following  state 
ment  to  the  press:  "The  wise  custom  which  limits 
the  President  to  two  terms,  regards  the  substance 
and  not  the  form,  and  under  no  circumstances  will  I 
be  a  candidate  for  and  accept  the  nomination  for 
another."  Those  who  heard  this  statement,  or  who 
had  talked  the  matter  over  with  Roosevelt,  under 
stood  that  he  had  in  mind  a  renomination  in  1908, 
but  many  persons  regarded  it  as  his  final  renuncia- 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  309 

tion  of  ever  being  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
And  later,  when  circumstances  quite  altered  the  sit 
uation,  this  "promise"  was  revived  to  plague  him. 

From  March  4,  1905,  he  was  President  "in  his  own 
right."  Behind  him  stood  the  American  people,  and 
he  was  justified  in  regarding  himself,  at  that  time, 
as  the  most  popular  President  since  Washington. 
The  unprecedented  majority  of  votes  he  had  re 
ceived  at  the  election  proved  that,  and  proved  also 
that  the  country  believed  in  "his  policies."  So  he 
might  go  ahead  to  carry  out  and  to  extend  the  gen 
eral  reforms  which  he  had  embarked  on  against  much 
opposition.  No  one  could  question  that  he  had  a 
mandate  from  the  people,  and  during  his  second  term 
he  was  still  more  aggressive. 

Now,  however,  came  the  little  rift  which  widened 
and  widened  and  at  last  opened  a  great  chasm  be 
tween  Roosevelt  and  the  people  on  one  side  and  the 
Machine  dominators  of  the  Republican  Party  on 
the  other.  For  although  Roosevelt  was  the  choice  of 
the  Republicans  and  of  migratory  voters  from  other 
parties,  although  he  was,  in  fact,  the  idol  of  millions 
who  supported  him,  the  Republican  Machine  in 
sisted  on  ruling.  Before  an  election,  the  Machine 
consents  to  a  candidate  who  can  win,  but  after  he 
has  been  elected  the  Machine  instinctively  acts  as 
his  master.  A  strong  man,  like  President  Cleveland, 


310  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

may  hold  out  against  the  Bosses  of  his  party,  but  the 
penalty  he  has  to  pay  is  to  find  himself  bereft  of  sup 
port  and  his  party  shattered.  This  might  have  hap 
pened  in  Roosevelt's  case  also,  if  he  had  not  been 
more  tactful  than  Cleveland  was  in  dealing  with  his 
enemies. 

He  now  had  to  learn  the  bitter  knowledge  of  the 
trials  which  beset  a  President  whose  vision  outsoars 
that  of  the  practical  rulers  of  his  party.  In  the  House 
of  Representatives  there  was  a  little  group  led  by 
the  Speaker,  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  of  Illinois,  who  con 
trolled  that  part  of  Congress  with  despotic  arro 
gance.  In  the  Senate  there  was  a  similar  group  of 
political  oligarchs,  called  the  Steering  Committee, 
which  decided  what  questions  should  be  discussed, 
what  bills  should  be  killed,  and  what  others  should 
be  passed.  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island,  headed  this. 
A  multi-millionaire  himself,  he  was  the  particular 
advocate  of  the  Big  Interests.  Next  came  Allison, 
of  Iowa,  an  original  Republican,  who  entered  Con 
gress  in  1863  and  remained  there  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  a  hide-bound  party  man,  personally  honest  and 
sufficiently  prominent  to  be  "talked  of"  for  Vice- 
President  on  several  occasions.  He  was  rather  the 
peacemaker  of  the  Steering  Committee,  having  the 
art  of  reconciling  antagonists  and  of  smoothing  an 
noying  angles.  A  little  older,  was  Orville  H.  Platt, 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  311 

the  Senator  from  Connecticut  who  died  in  1905,  and 
was  esteemed  a  model  of  virtue  among  the  Senators 
of  his  time.  As  an  offset  to  the  men  of  threescore  and 
ten  and  over  was  Albert  J.  Beveridge,  the  young  Sen 
ator  from  Indiana,  vigorous,  eloquent,  fearless,  and 
radical,  whose  mind  and  heart  were  consecrated  to 
Roosevelt.  Beveridge,  at  least,  had  no  ties,  secret  or 
open,  with  the  Trusts,  or  the  Interests,  or  Wall  Street ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  attacked  them  fiercely,  and  among 
other  Anti-Trust  legislation  he  drove  through  the 
Meat  Inspection  Bill.  How  he  managed  to  get  on 
with  the  gray  wolves  of  the  Committee  it  would  be 
interesting  to  hear;  but  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  the 
notion  that  those  gray  wolves  sought  personal  profit 
in  money  by  their  steering.  None  of  them  was 
charged  with  using  his  position  for  the  benefit  of  his 
purse.  Power  was  what  those  politicians  desired; 
Power,  which  gave  them  the  opportunity  to  make 
the  political  tenets  of  their  party  prevail.  Orville 
Platt,  or  Allison,  regarded  Republicanism  with  al 
most  religious  fanaticism;  and  we  need  not  search 
far  in  history  to  find  fanatics  who  were  personally 
very  good  and  tender-hearted  men,  but  who  would 
put  heretics  to  death  with  a  smile  of  pious  satisfac 
tion. 

Roosevelt's   task  was  to  persuade  the  Steering 
Committee  to  support  him  in  as  many  of  his  Radical 


312  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

measures  as  he  could.  They  had  done  this  during 
his  first  Administration,  partly  because  they  did 
not  see  whither  he  was  leading.  Senator  Hanna,  then 
a  member  of  the  Steering  Committee,  attempted  to 
steady  all  Republicans  who  seemed  likely  to  be  se 
duced  by  Roosevelt's  subversive  novelties  by  telling 
them  to  "stand  pat,"  and,  as  we  look  back  now,  the 
Senator  from  Ohio,  with  his  stand-pattism  broom 
reminds  us  of  the  portly  Mrs.  Partington  trying  to 
sweep  back  the  inflowing  Atlantic  Ocean.  During 
the  second  Administration,  however,  no  one  could 
plead  ignorance  or  surprise  when  Roosevelt  urged 
on  new  projects.  He  made  no  secret  of  his  policies, 
and  he  could  not  have  disguised,  if  he  would,  the 
fact  that  he  was  thorough.  By  a  natural  tendency  the 
1 1  Stand-Patters ' '  drew  closer  together.  Similarly 
the  various  elements  which  followed  Roosevelt 
tended  to  combine.  Already  some  of  these  were  be 
ginning  to  be  called  "  Insurgents,"  but  this  name 
did  not  frighten  them  nor  did  it  shame  them  back 
into  the  fold  of  the  orthodox  Republicans.  As  Roose 
velt  continued  his  fight  for  reclamation,  conserva 
tion,  health,  and  pure  foods,  and  governmental  con 
trol  of  the  great  monopolies,  the  opposition  to  him, 
on  the  part  of  the  capitalists  affected,  grew  more 
intense.  What  wonder  that  these  men,  realizing  at 
last  that  their  unlimited  privileges  would  be  taken 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  313 

away  from  them,  resented  their  deprivation.  The 
privileged  classes  in  England  have  not  welcomed  the 
suggestion  that  their  great  landed  estates  shall  be 
cut  up,  nor  can  we  expect  that  the  American  dukes 
and  marquises  of  oil  and  steel  and  copper  and  trans 
portation  should  look  forward  with  meek  acquies 
cence  to  their  own  extinction. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  no  politics  in  politics,  and 
so  the  gray  wolves  who  ran  the  Republican  Party, 
knowing  that  Roosevelt,  and  not  themselves,  had 
the  determining  popular  support  of  the  country,  were 
too  wary  to  block  him  entirely  as  the  Democrats  had 
done  under  Cleveland.  They  let  his  bills  go  through, 
but  with  more  evident  reluctance,  only  after  bitter 
fighting.  And  as  they  were  nearly  all  church  mem 
bers  in  good  standing,  we  can  imagine  that  they 
prayed  the  Lord  to  hasten  the  day  when  this  pesti 
lent  marplot  in  the  White  House  should  retire  from 
office.  Trusting  Roosevelt  so  far  as  to  believe  thai- 
he  would  stand  by  his  pledge  not  to  be  a  can 
didate  in  1908,  they  cast  about  for  a  person  of  their 
own  stripe  whom  they  could  make  the  country 
accept. 

But  Roosevelt  himself  felt  too  deeply  involved  in 
the  cause  of  Reform,  which  he  had  been  pushing  for 
seven  years,  to  allow  his  successor  to  be  dictated  by 
the  Stand-Patters.  So  he  sought  among  his  associates 


314  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

in  the  Cabinet  for  the  member  who,  judging  by  their 
work  together,  would  most  loyally  carry  on  his  poli 
cies,  and  at  length  he  decided  upon  William  H.  Taft, 
his  Secretary  of  War.  "Root  would  make  the  better 
President,  but  Taft  would  be  the  better  candidate,'* 
Theodore  wrote  to  an  intimate,  and  that  opinion  was 
generally  held  in  Washington  and  elsewhere.  Mr. 
Root  had  so  conducted  the  Department  of  State, 
since  the  death  of  John  Hay,  that  many  good  judges 
regarded  him  as  the  ablest  of  all  the  Secretaries  of 
that  Department,  and  Roosevelt  himself  went  even 
farther.  "Root,"  he  said  to  me,  "is  the  greatest  in 
tellectual  force  in  American  public  life  since  Lin 
coln."  But  in  his  career  as  lawyer,  which  brought 
him  to  the  head  of  the  American  Bar,  he  had  been 
attorney  for  powerful  corporations,  and  that  being 
the  time  when  the  Government  was  fighting  the 
Corporations,  it  was  not  supposed  that  his  can 
didacy  would  be  popular.  So  Taft  was  preferred  to 
him. 

The  Republican  Machine  accepted  Taft  as  a  can 
didate  with  composure,  if  not  with  enthusiasm.  Any 
one  would  be  better  than  Roosevelt  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Machine  and  its  supporters,  and  perhaps  they 
perceived  in  Secretary  Taft  qualities  not  wholly  un 
sympathetic.  They  were  probably  thankful,  also, 
that  Roosevelt  had  not  demanded  more.  He  allowed 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  315 

the  "regulars"  to  choose  the  nominee  for  Vice- Presi 
dent,  and  he  did  not  meddle  with  the  make-up  of  the 
Republican  National  Committee.  One  of  his  critics, 
Dean  Lewis,  marks  this  as  Roosevelt's  chief  political 
blunder,  because  by  leaving  the  Republican  Na 
tional  Committee  in  command  he  virtually  pre 
determined  the  policy  of  the  next  four  years.  Only 
a  very  strong  President  with  equal  zeal  and  fighting 
quality  could  win  against  the  Committee.  In  1908 
he  had  them  so  docile  that  he  might  have  changed 
their  membership,  and  changed  the  rules  by  which 
elections  were  governed  if  he  had  so  willed,  but,  just 
as  before  the  election  of  1904,  Roosevelt  had  doubted 
his  own  popularity  in  the  country,  so  now  he  missed 
his  chance  because  he  did  not  wish  to  seem  to  wrest 
from  the  unwilling  Machine  powers  which  it  lost  no 
time  in  using  against  him. 

The  campaign  never  reached  a  dramatic  crisis. 
Mr.  Bryan,  the  Democratic  candidate,  who  still 
posed  as  the  Boy  Orator  of  the  Platte,  although  he 
had  passed  forty-eight  years  of  age,  made  a  spirited 
canvass,  and  when  the  votes  were  counted  he  gained 
more  than  a  million  and  a  third  over  the  total  for 
Judge  Parker  in  1904.  But  Mr.  Taft  won  easily  by  a 
million  and  a  quarter  votes. 

Between  election  and  inauguration  an  ominous 
disillusion  set  in.  The  Rooseveltians  had  taken  it  for 


3i 6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

granted  that  the  new  President  would  carry  on  the 
policies  of  the  old;  more  than  that,  the  impression 
prevailed  among  them  that  the  high  officials  of  the 
Roosevelt  Administration,  including  some  members 
of  his  Cabinet,  would  be  retained,  but  when  Inaugu 
ration  Day  came,  it  appeared  that  Mr.  Taft  had 
chosen  a  new  set  of  advisers,  and  he  denied  that  he 
had  given  any  one  reason  to  believe  that  he  would 
do  otherwise. 

March  4,  1909,  was  a  wintry  day  in  Washington. 
A  snowstorm  and  high  winds  prevented  holding  the 
inaugural  exercises  out  of  doors  as  usual  on  the  East 
Front  of  the  Capitol.  President  Roosevelt  and  Presi 
dent-elect  Taft  drove  in  state  down  Pennsylvania 
Avenue,  and  Mr.  Taft,  having  taken  the  oath  of 
office,  delivered  his  inaugural  address  in  the  Senate 
Chamber.  The  ceremonies  being  over,  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
instead  of  accompanying  the  new  President  to  the 
White  House,  went  to  the  railway  station  and  took 
the  train  for  New  York.  This  innovation  had  been 
planned  some  time  before,  because  Mr.  Roosevelt 
had  arranged  to  sail  for  Europe  in  a  few  days,  and 
needed  to  reach  Oyster  Bay  as  soon  as  possible  to 
complete  his  preparations. 

Many  an  eye-witness  who  watched  him  leave,  as 
a  simple  civilian,  the  Hall  of  Congress,  must  have 
felt  that  with  his  going  there  closed  one  of  the  most 


CHOOSING  HIS  SUCCESSOR  317 

memorable  administrations  this  country  had  ever 
known.  Roosevelt  departed,  but  his  invisible  pres 
ence  still  filled  the  capital  city  and  frequented  every 
quarter  of  the  Nation. 


W 


CHAPTER  XX 

WORLD  HONORS 

HAT  to  do  with  ex-Presidents  is  a  problem 
which  worries  those  happy  Americans  who 
have  nothing  else  to  worry  over.  They  think  of  an 
ex- President  as  of  a  sacred  white  elephant,  who  must 
not  work,  although  he  has  probably  too  little  money 
to  keep  him  alive  in  proper  ease  and  dignity.  In  fact, 
however,  these  gentlemen  have  managed,  at  least 
during  the  past  half-century,  to  sink  back  into  the 
civilian  mass  from  which  they  emerged  without  suf 
fering  want  themselves  or  dimming  the  lustre  which 
radiates  from  the  office.  Roosevelt  little  thought  that 
in  quitting  the  Presidency  he  was  not  going  into  po 
litical  obscurity. 

Roosevelt  had  two  objects  in  view  when  he  left 
the  White  House.  He  sought  long  and  complete  rest, 
and  to  place  himself  beyond  the  reach  of  politicians. 
In  fairness,  he  wished  to  give  Mr.  Taft  a  free  field, 
which  would  hardly  have  been  possible  if  Roosevelt 
had  remained  in  Washington  or  New  York,  where 
politicians  might  have  had  access  to  him. 

Accordingly,  he  planned  to  hunt  big  game  in  Af 
rica  for  a  year,  and  in  order  to  have  a  definite  pur- 


Copyright  by  Underwood  *  Underwood,  X.Y. 
AT  SAGAMORE  HILL 


WORLD  HONORS  319 

pose,  which  might  give  his  expedition  lasting  use 
fulness,  he  arranged  to  collect  specimens  for  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington.  His  second 
son,  Kermit,  then  twenty  years  of  age,  besides  sev 
eral  naturalists  and  hunters,  accompanied  him.  His 
expedition  sailed  from  New  York  on  March  23d, 
touched  at  the  Azores  and  at  Gibraltar,  where  the 
English  Commander  showed  him  the  fortifications, 
and  transshipped  at  Naples  into  an  East-African 
liner.  He  found  his  stateroom  filled  with  flowers  sent 
by  his  admiring  friend,  Kaiser  William  II,  with  a 
telegram  of  effusive  greeting,  and  with  messages 
and  tokens  from  minor  potentates.  More  important 
to  him  than  these  tributes,  however,  was  the  pres 
ence  of  Frederick  C.  Selous,  the  most  famous  hunter 
of  big  game  in  Africa,  who  joined  the  ship  and  proved 
a  congenial  fellow  passenger.  They  reached  Mom 
basa  on  April  23d,  and  after  the  caravan  had  been 
made  ready,  they  started  for  the  interior. 

We  need  not  follow  in  detail  the  year  which 
Roosevelt  and  his  party  spent  in  his  African  hunting. 
The  railroad  took  them  to  Lake  Victoria  Nyanza, 
but  they  stopped  at  many  places  on  the  way,  and 
made  long  excursions  into  the  country.  Then  from 
the  Lake  they  proceeded  to  the  Albert  Nyanza  and 
steamed  down  the  Nile  to  Gondokoro,  which  they 
reached  on  February  26,  1910.  On  March  I4th  at 


320  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Khartoum,  where  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  their  daughter 
Ethel  awaited  them,  Roosevelt  emerged  into  civiliza 
tion  again.  He  and  Kermit  had  shot  512  beasts  and 
birds,  of  which  they  kept  about  a  dozen  for  trophies, 
the  rest  going  to  the  Smithsonian  Institution  and  to 
the  museums.  A  few  of  their  specimens  were  unique, 
and  the  total  product  of  the  expedition  was  the 
most  important  which  had  ever  reached  America 
from  Africa. 

After  spending  a  few  days  in  visiting  Omdurman 
and  other  scenes  connected  with  the  British  con 
quest  of  the  Mahdists,  less  than  a  dozen  years  before, 
the  Roosevelts  went  down  the  river  to  Cairo,  where 
the  ex-President  addressed  the  Egyptian  students. 
These  were  the  backbone  of  the  so-called  National 
ist  Party,  which  aimed  at  driving  out  the  British  and 
had  killed  the  Prime  Minister  a  month  before.  They 
warned  Roosevelt  that  if  he  dared  to  touch  on  this 
subject  he,  too,  would  be  assassinated.  But  such 
threats  did  not  move  him  then  or  ever.  Roosevelt  re 
proved  them  point-blank  for  killing  Boutros  Pasha, 
and  told  them  that  a  party  which  sought  freedom 
must  show  its  capacity  for  living  by  law  and  order, 
before  it  could  expect  to  deserve  freedom. 

From  Egypt,  Roosevelt  crossed  to  Naples,  and 
then  began  what  must  be  described  as  a  triumphal 
progress  through  Central  and  Western  Europe.  Only 


WORLD  HONORS  321 

General  Grant,  after  his  Presidency,  had  made  a  sim 
ilar  tour,  but  he  did  not  excite  a  tenth  of  the  popular 
interest  and  enthusiasm  which  Roosevelt  excited. 
Although  Grant  had  the  prestige  of  being  the  success 
ful  general  of  the  most  tremendous  war  ever  fought 
in  America,  he  had  nothing  picturesque  or  magnetic 
in  his  personality.  The  peasants  in  the  remote  re 
gions  had  heard  of  Roosevelt ;  persons  of  every  class 
in  the  cities  knew  about  him  a  little  more  definitely ; 
and  all  were  keen  to  see  him.  Except  Garibaldi,  no 
modern  ever  set  multitudes  on  fire  as  Roosevelt  did, 
and  Garibaldi  was  the  hero  of  a  much  narrower 
sphere  and  had  the  advantage  of  being  the  hero  of  the 
then  downtrodden  masses.  Roosevelt,  on  the  other 
hand,  belonged  to  the  ruling  class  in  America,  had 
served  nearly  eight  years  as  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  was  equally  the  popular  idol  without 
class  distinction.  And  he  had  just  come  from  a 
very  remarkable  exploit,  having  led  his  scientific  and 
hunting  expedition  for  twelve  months  through  the 
perils  and  hardships  of  tropical  Africa.  We  Americans 
may  well  thrill  with  satisfaction  to  remember  that  it 
was  this  most  typical  of  Americans  who  received  the 
honors  and  homage  of  the  world  precisely  because  he 
was  most  typically  American  and  strikingly  indi 
vidual. 

Before  he  reached  Italy  on  his  way  back,  he  had 


322  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

invitations  from  most  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  to 
visit  them,  and  universities  and  learned  bodies  re 
quested  him  to  address  them.  At  Rome,  as  guest  of 
King  Victor  Emanuel  II,  he  received  ovations  of  the 
exuberant  and  throbbing  kind,  which  only  the  Ital 
ians  can  give.  But  here  also  occurred  what  might  have 
been,  but  for  his  common  sense  and  courage,  a  hitch 
in  his  triumphal  progress.  The  intriguers  of  the  Vat 
ican,  always  on  the  alert  to  edify  the  Roman  Catho 
lics  in  the  United  States,  thought  they  saw  a  chance 
to  exalt  themselves  and  humble  the  Protestants  by 
stipulating  that  Colonel  Roosevelt,  who  had  ac 
cepted  an  invitation  to  call  upon  the  Pope,  should  not 
visit  any  Protestant  organization  while  he  was  in  that 
city.  Some  time  before,  Vice- President  Fairbanks 
had  incensed  Cardinal  Merry  del  Val,  the  Papal  Sec 
retary,  and  his  group,  by  remarks  at  the  Methodist 
College  in  Rome.  Here  was  a  dazzling  opportunity 
for  not  only  getting  even,  but  for  coming  out  victo 
rious.  If  the  Vatican  schemers  could  force  Colonel 
Roosevelt,  who,  at  the  moment,  was  the  greatest  fig 
ure  in  the  world,  to  obey  their  orders,  they  might 
exult  in  the  sight  of  all  the  nations.  Should  he  balk, 
he  would  draw  down  upon  himself  a  hostile  Catholic 
vote  at  home.  Probably  the  good-natured  Pope  him 
self  understood  little  about  the  intrigue  and  took 
little  part  in  it,  for  Pius  X  was  rather  a  kindly  and 


WORLD  HONORS  323 

a  genuinely  pious  pontiff.  But  Cardinal  Merry  del 
Val,  apt  pupil  of  the  Jesuits,  made  an  egregious  blun 
der  if  he  expected  to  catch  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  a 
Papal  trap.  The  Rector  of  the  American  Catholic 
College  in  Rome  wrote:  '"The  Holy  Father  will  be 
delighted  to  grant  audience  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  on 
April  5th,  and  hopes  nothing  will  arise  to  prevent  it, 
such  as  the  much-regretted  incident  which  made  the 
reception  of  Mr.  Fairbanks  impossible.'  Roosevelt 
replied  to  our  Ambassador  as  follows :  '  On  the  other 
hand,  I  in  my  turn  must  decline  to  have  any  stipula 
tions  made  or  submit  to  any  conditions  which  in  any 
way  limit  my  freedom  of  conduct.'  To  this  the  Vat 
ican  replied  through  our  Ambassador:  'In  view  of 
the  circumstances  for  which  neither  His  Holiness  nor 
Mr.  Roosevelt  is  responsible,  an  audience  could  not 
occur  except  on  the  understanding  expressed  in  the 
former  message.' "  1 

Ex-President  Roosevelt  did  not,  by  calling  upon 
the  Pope,  furnish  Cardinal  Merry  del  Val  with  cause 
to  gloat.  A  good  while  afterward  in  talking  over  the 
matter  with  me,  Roosevelt  dismissed  it  with  "No 
self-respecting  American  could  allow  his  actions  or 
his  going  and  coming  to  be  dictated  to  him  by  any 
Pope  or  King."  That,  to  him,  was  so  self-evident  a 
fact  that  it  required  no  discussion ;  and  the  American 

1  Washburn,  164. 


324  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

people,  including  probably  a  large  majority  of  Roman 
Catholics,  agreed  with  him. 

From  Rome  he  went  to  Austria,  to  Vienna  first, 
where  the  aged  Emperor,  Francis  Joseph,  welcomed 
him;  and  then  to  Budapest,  where  the  Hungarians, 
eager  for  their  independence,  shouted  themselves 
hoarse  at  sight  of  the  representative  of  American  in 
dependence.  Wherever  he  went  the  masses  in  the 
cities  crowded  round  him  and  the  people  in  the  coun 
try  flocked  to  cheer  him  as  he  passed.  Since  Norway 
had  conferred  on  him  the  Nobel  Peace  Prize  after  the 
Russo-Japanese  War,  he  journeyed  to  Christiania  to 
pay  his  respects  to  the  Nobel  Committee,  and  there 
he  delivered  an  address  on  the  conditions  necessary 
for  a  universal  peace  in  which  he  foreshadowed  many 
of  the  terms  which  have  since  been  preached  by  the 
advocates  of  a  League  of  Nations.  In  Berlin,  the 
Kaiser  received  him  with  ostentatious  friendliness. 
He  addressed  him  as  "Friend  Roosevelt."  Since  the 
Colonel  was  not  a  monarch  the  Kaiser  could  not  ad 
dress  him  as  "Brother"  or  as  "Cousin,"  and  the 
word  "Friend "  disguised  whatever  condescension  he 
may  have  felt.  There  was  a  grand  military  review  of 
twelve  thousand  troops,  which  the  Kaiser  and  his 
"Friend"  inspected,  and  he  took  care  to  inform 
Roosevelt  that  he  was  the  first  civilian  to  whom  this 
honor  had  ever  been  paid.  An  Imperial  photographer 


WORLD  HONORS  325 

made  snapshots  of  the  Colonel  and  the  Kaiser,  and 
these  were  subsequently  given  to  the  Colonel  with 
superscriptions  and  comments  written  by  the  Kaiser 
on  the  negatives.  Roosevelt's  impression  of  his  Im 
perial  host  was,  on  the  whole,  favorable.  I  do  not 
think  he  regarded  him  as  very  solid,  personally,  but 
he  recognized  the  results  of  the  power  which  Wil 
liam's  inherited  position  as  Emperor  conferred  on 
him. 

Paris  did  not  fall  behind  any  of  the  other  Eu 
ropean  capitals  in  the  enthusiasm  of  its  welcome. 
There,  Roosevelt  was  received  in  solemn  session  by 
the  Sorbonne,  before  which  he  spoke  on  citizenship 
in  a  Republic,  and,  with  prophetic  vision,  he  warned 
against  the  seductions  of  phrase-makers  as  among 
the  insidious  dangers  to  which  Republics  were  ex 
posed. 

His  most  conspicuous  triumph,  however,  was  in 
England.  On  May  6th,  King  Edward  VII  died,  and 
President  Taft  appointed  Colonel  Roosevelt  special 
envoy,  to  represent  the  United  States  at  the  royal 
funeral.  This  drew  together  crowned  heads  from  all 
parts  of  Europe,  so  that  at  one  of  the  State  functions 
at  Buckingham  Palace  there  were  no  fewer  than  thir 
teen  monarchs  at  table.  The  Colonel  stayed  at  Dor 
chester  House  with  the  American  Ambassador,  Mr. 
Whitelaw  Reid,  and  was  beset  by  calls  and  invita- 


326  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

tions  from  the  crowned  personages.  I  have  heard  him 
give  a  most  amusing  account  of  that  experience,  but 
it  is  too  soon  to  repeat  it.  Then,  as  always,  he  could 
tell  a  bore  at  sight,  and  the  bore  could  not  deceive 
him  by  any  disguise  of  ermine  cloak  or  Imperial  title. 
The  German  Kaiser  seems  to  have  taken  pains  to  pose 
as  the  preferred  intimate  of  "Friend  Roosevelt,  "  but 
the  " Friend"  remained  unwaveringly  Democratic. 
One  day  William  telephoned  to  ask  Roosevelt  to 
lunch  with  him,  but  the  Colonel  diplomatically 
pleaded  a  sore  throat,  and  declined.  At  another  time 
when  the  Kaiser  wished  him  to  come  and  chat,  Roose 
velt  replied  that  he  would  with  pleasure,  but  that  he 
had  only  twenty  minutes  at  the  Kaiser's  disposal,  as 
he  had  already  arranged  to  call  on  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward  at  three-thirty.  These  reminiscences  may  seem 
trifling,  unless  you  take  them  as  illustrating  the  truly 
Democratic  simplicity  with  which  the  First  Citizen 
of  the  American  Republic  met  the  scions  of  the  Haps- 
burgs  and  the  Hohenzollerns  on  equal  terms  as  gen 
tleman  with  gentlemen. 

Some  of  his  backbiters  and  revilers  at  home  whis 
pered  that  his  head  was  turned  by  all  these  pageants 
and  courtesies  of  kings,  and  that  he  regretted  that 
our  system  provided  for  no  monarch.  This  afforded 
him  infinite  amusement.  "Think  of  it! "  he  said  to  me 
after  his  return.  "They  even  say  that  I  want  to  be  a 


WORLD  HONORS  327 

prince  myself !  Not  I !  I ' ve  seen  too  many  of  them ! 
Do  you  know  what  a  prince  is?  He's  a  cross  between 
Ward  McAllister  and  Vice- President  Fairbanks.  How 
can  any  one  suppose  I  should  like  to  be  that?" 
It  may  be  necessary  to  inform  the  later  generation 
that  Mr.  Ward  McAllister  was  by  profession  a  de 
cayed  gentleman  in  New  York  City  who  achieved 
fame  by  compiling  a  list  of  the  Four  Hundred  persons 
whom  he  condescended  to  regard  as  belonging  to 
New  York  Society.  Vice- President  Fairbanks  was  an 
Indiana  politician,  tall  and  thin  and  oppressively 
taciturn,  who  seemed  to  be  stricken  dumb  by  the 
weight  of  an  immemorial  ancestry  or  by  the  sense  of 
his  own  importance ;  and  who  was  not  less  cold  than 
dumb,  so  that  irreverent  jokers  reported  that  persons 
might  freeze  to  death  in  his  presence  if  they  came  too 
near  or  stayed  too  long. 

All  this  was  only  the  froth  on  the  stream  of  Roose 
velt's  experience  in  England.  He  took  deep  enjoy 
ment  in  meeting  the  statesmen  and  the  authors  and 
the  learned  men  there.  The  City  of  London  bestowed 
the  freedom  of  the  city  upon  him.  The  Universities 
of  Cambridge  and  Oxford  gave  him  their  highest  hon 
orary  degrees.  At  the  London  Guildhall  he  made  a 
memorable  address,  in  which  he  warned  the  British 
nation  to  see  to  it  that  the  grievances  of  the  Egyp 
tian  people  were  not  allowed  to  fester.  Critics  at  the 


328  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

moment  chided  this  advice  as  an  exhibition  of  bad 
taste;  an  intrusion,  if  not  an  impertinence,  on  the 
part  of  a  foreigner.  They  did  not  know,  however, 
that  before  speaking,  Roosevelt  submitted  his  re 
marks  to  high  officers  in  the  Government  and  had 
their  approval;  for  apparently  they  were  well  pleased 
that  this  burning  topic  should  be  brought  under  dis 
cussion  by  means  of  Roosevelt's  warning. 

At  Cambridge  University  he  exhorted  the  students 
not  to  be  satisfied  with  a  life  of  sterile  athleticism. 
"I  never  was  an  athlete,"  said  he,  "although  I  have 
always  led  an  outdoor  life,  and  have  accomplished 
something  in  it,  simply  because  my  theory  is  that  al 
most  any  man  can  do  a  great  deal,  if  he  wrill,  by  get 
ting  the  utmost  possible  service  out  of  the  qualities 
that  he  actually  possesses.  .  .  .  The  average  man  who 
is  successful  —  the  average  statesman,  the  average 
public  servant,  the  average  soldier,  who  wins  what  we 
call  great  success  —  is  not  a  genius.  He  is  a  man  who 
has  merely  the  ordinary  qualities  that  he  shares  with 
his  fellows,  but  who  has  developed  those  ordinary 
qualities  to  a  more  than  ordinary  degree." 

The  culmination  of  his  addresses  abroad  was  his 
Romanes  Lecture,  delivered  at  the  Convocation  at 
Oxford  University  on  June  7,  1910.  Lord  Curzon,  the 
Chancellor,  presided.  Roosevelt  took  for  his  theme, 
"Biological  Analogies  in  History,"  a  subject  which 


WORLD  HONORS  329 

his  lifelong  interest  in  natural  history  and  his  consid 
erable  reading  in  scientific  theory  made  appropriate. 
He  afterwards  said  that  in  order  not  to  commit 
shocking  blunders  he  consulted  freely  his  old  friend 
Dr.  Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  head  of  the  Museum  of 
Natural  History  in  New  York  City,  but  the  substance 
and  ideas  were  unquestionably  his  own. 

Dr.  Henry  Goudy,  "the  public  orator"  at  Cam 
bridge,  in  a  Presentation  Speech,  eulogized  Roose 
velt's  manifold  activities  and  achievements,  declar 
ing,  among  other  things,  that  he  had  "  acquired  a  title 
to  be  ranked  with  his  great  predecessor  Abraham 
Lincoln  — '  of  whom  one  conquered  slavery,  and  the 
other  corruption.* "  Lord  Curzon  addressed  him  as, 
"peer  of  the  most  august  kings,  queller  of  wars,  de 
stroyer  of  monsters  wherever  found,  yet  the  most 
human  of  mankind,  deeming  nothing  indifferent  to 
you,  not  even  the  blackest  of  the  black." 

This  cluster  of  foreign  addresses  is  not  the  least  re 
markable  of  Roosevelt's  intellectual  feats.  No  doubt 
among  those  who  listened  to  him  in  each  place  there 
were  carping  critics,  scholars  who  did  not  find  his 
words  scholarly  enough,  dilettanti  made  tepid  by 
over-culture,  intellectual  cormorants  made  heavy  by 
too  much  information,  who  found  no  novelty  in  what 
he  said,  and  were  insensible  to  the  rush  and  freshness 
of  his  style.  But  in  spite  of  these  he  did  plant  in  each 


330  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

audience  thoughts  which  they  remembered,  and  he 
touched  upon  a  range  of  interests  which  no  other 
man  then  alive  could  have  made  to  seem  equally 
vital. 

On  June  i8th  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  reached 
New  York.  All  the  way  up  the  harbor  from  Sandy 
Hook,  he  was  escorted  by  a  vast  concourse  of  vessels, 
large  and  small,  tugs,  steamboats,  and  battleships. 
At  the  Narrows,  Fort  Wadsworth  greeted  him  with 
the  Presidential  salute  of  twenty-one  guns.  The  rev 
enue-cutter,  Androscoggin,  took  him  from  the  Kai- 
serin  Auguste  Victoria,  on  which  he  had  crossed  the 
ocean,  and  landed  him  at  the  Battery.  There  an  im 
mense  multitude  awaited  him.  Mayor  Strong  bade 
him  welcome,  to  which  he  replied  briefly  in  affection 
ate  words  to  his  fellow  countrymen.  Then  began  a 
triumphal  procession  up  Broadway,  and  up  Fifth 
Avenue,  surpassing  any  other  which  New  York  had 
seen.  No  other  person  in  America  had  ever  been  so 
welcomed.  The  million  or  more  who  shouted  and 
cheered  and  waved,  were  proud  of  him  because  of 
his  great  reception  in  Europe,  but  they  admired  him 
still  more  for  his  imperishable  work  at  home,  and 
loved  him  most  of  all,  because  they  knew  him  as 
their  friend  and  fellow,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  their 
ideal  American.  A  group  of  Rough  Riders  and  two 
regiments  of  Spanish  War  Veterans  formed  his  im- 


WORLD  HONORS  331 

mediate  escort,  than  whom  none  could  have  pleased 
him  better. 

His  head  was  not  turned,  but  his  heart  must  have 
overflowed  with  gratitude. 

Later,  when  the  crowds  had  dispersed,  he  went 
into  a  bookstore,  and  some  one  in  the  street  having 
recognized  him,  the  word  passed,  and  a  great  crowd 
cheered  him  as  he  came  out.  Telling  his  sister  of  the 
occurrence,  he  said,  "  And  they  soon  will  be  throwing 
rotten  apples  at  me!" 


CHAPTER  XXI 

WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY? 

DID  those  words  of  Roosevelt  spring  from  his 
sense  of  humor  —  humor  which  recognizes  the 
topsy-turvy  of  life  and  its  swift  changes,  and  still 
laughs  —  or  from  the  instinct  which  knows  that  even 
in  the  sweetest  of  all  experiences  there  must  be  a  drop 
of  bitterness?  Whatever  their  cause,  they  proved  to 
be  a  true  foreboding.  He  had  not  been  home  twenty- 
four  hours  before  he  perceived,  on  talking  with  his 
friends,  that  the  Republican  Party  during  his  absence 
had  drifted  far  from  the  course  he  had  charted.  "  His 
policies"  had  vanished  with  his  control,  and  the  men 
who  now  managed  the  Administration  and  the  party 
regarded  him,  not  merely  with  suspicion,  but  with 
aversion. 

To  tell  the  story  of  this  conflict  is  the  disagreeable 
duty  of  the  historian  of  that  period,  especially  if  he 
have  friends  and  acquaintances  on  both  sides  of  the 
feud.  There  are  some  facts  not  yet  known;  there  are 
others  which  must  be  touched  upon  very  delicately 
if  at  all ;  and,  in  the  main,  so  much  of  the  episode  grew 
out  of  personal  likes  and  dislikes  that  it  is  hard  to 
base  one's  account  of  it  on  documents.  In  trying 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    333 

to  get  at  the  truth,  I  have  been  puzzled  by  the 
point-blank  contradictions  of  antagonistic  witnesses, 
whose  veracity  has  not  been  questioned.  Equally  per 
plexing  are  the  lapses  of  memory  in  cases  where  I 
happen  to  have  seen  letters  or  documents  written  at 
the  time  and  giving  real  facts.  The  country  would 
assuredly  have  been  alarmed  if  it  had  suspected  that, 
during  the  years  from  1909  to  1912,  the  statesmen 
who  had  charge  of  it  were  as  liable  to  attacks  of 
amnesia  as  they  proved  to  be  later. 

The  head  and  front  of  the  quarrel  which  wrecked 
the  Republican  Party  must  be  sought  in  Roosevelt's 
thoroughly  patriotic  desire  to  have  a  successor  who 
should  carry  on  the  principles  which  he  had  fought 
for  and  had  embodied  in  national  laws  during  the 
nearly  eight  years  of  his  Presidency.  He  felt  more 
passionately  than  anybody  else  the  need  of  contin 
uing  the  work  he  had  begun,  not  because  it  was  his 
work,  but  because  on  it  alone,  as  he  thought,  the 
reconciliation  between  Capital  and  Labor  in  the 
United  States  could  be  brought  about,  and  the  im 
pending  war  of  classes  could  be  prevented.  So  he 
chose  Judge  Taft  as  the  person  who,  he  believed, 
would  follow  his  lead  in  this  undertaking.  But  the 
experience  of  a  hundred  and  ten  years,  since  Wash 
ington  was  succeeded  by  John  Adams,  might  have 
taught  him  that  no  President  can  quite  reproduce 


334  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  qualities  of  his  predecessor  and  that  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  Presidential  dynasty  is  not  congenial 
to  the  spirit  of  the  American  people.  Jefferson  did, 
indeed,  hand  on  his  mantle  to  Madison,  and  the 
experiment  partially  succeeded.  But  Madison  was 
much  nearer  Jefferson  in  ability  and  influence  than 
.  Judge  Taft  was  near  Roosevelt. 

During  the  campaign  of  1908,  and  immediately 
after  the  election,  we  can  imagine  that  Mr.  Taft  was 
sincerely  open  to  Roosevelt's  suggestions,  and  that 
he  quite  naturally  gave  Roosevelt  the  impression 
that  he  intended  to  follow  them,  not  because  they 
were  Roosevelt's,  but  because  they  were  his  own  also. 
As  soon  as  he  began  to  realize  that  he  was  President, 
and  that  a  President  has  a  right  to  speak  and  act 
on  his  own  motion,  Mr.  Taft  saw  other  views  rising 
within  him,  other  preferences,  other  resolves.  From 
the  bosom  of  his  family  he  may  have  heard  the  ex 
hortation,  "Be  your  own  President;  don't  be  any 
body's  man  or  rubber  stamp."  No  doubt  intimate 
friends  strengthened  this  advice.  The  desire  to  be 
free  and  independent,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
every  normal  heart,  took  possession  of  him  also; 
further,  was  it  not  the  strict  duty  of  a  President  to 
give  the  country  the  benefit  of  his  best  judgment 
instead  of  following  the  rules  laid  down  by  another, 
or  to  parrot  another's  doctrines? 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    335 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  process  by  which  the 
change  came,  it  had  come  before  Taft's  inauguration. 
He  chose  a  new  Cabinet,  although  Roosevelt  sup 
posed  that  several  of  the  members  of  his  Cabinet 
would  be  retained.  Before  the  Colonel  started  for 
Africa  he  felt  that  a  change  had  come,  but  he  went 
away  with  the  hope  that  things  would  turn  out  bet 
ter  than  he  feared.  His  long  absence  under  the  Equa 
tor  would  relieve  any  anxiety  Taf t  might  have  as  to 
Roosevelt's  intention  to  dictate  or  interfere. 

Very  little  political  news  reached  the  Colonel  while 
he  was  hunting.  On  reaching  Italy,  on  his  return 
journey,  he  met  Mr.  Gifford  Pinchot,  who  had  come 
post-haste  from  New  York,  and  conveyed  to  him  the 
latest  account  of  the  political  situation  at  home.  It 
was  clear  that  the  Republican  Party  had  split  into 
two  factions  —  the  Regulars,  who  regarded  President 
Taft  as  their  standard-bearer,  and  the  Insurgents, 
who  rallied  round  Roosevelt,  and  longed  desperately 
for  his  return.  To  the  enemies  of  the  Administration, 
it  seemed  that  Mr.  Taft  had  turned  away  from  the 
Rooseveltian  policies.  In  his  appointments  he  had 
replaced  Roosevelt  men  by  Regulars.  His  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  Mr.  Ballinger,  came  into  conflict 
with  Mr.  Pinchot  over  conservation,  and  the  public 
assumed  that  the  President  was  not  only  uncon 
cerned  to  uphold  conservation,  but  was  willing  that 


336  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  natural  resources  of  the  Nation  should  fall  again 
into  the  hands  of  greedy  private  corporations.  This 
assumption  proved  to  be  false,  and  Secretary  Ballin- 
ger  was  exonerated  by  a  public  investigation;  but  for 
two  years,  at  least,  the  cloud  hung  over  Mr.  Taft's 
reputation,  and,  as  always  happens,  the  correction  be 
ing  far  less  nimble  than  the  accusation,  took  a  much 
longer  time  in  remedying  the  harm  that  it  had  done. 
When,  therefore,  Roosevelt  landed  at  the  Battery 
on  June  18,  1910,  the  day  of  his  apotheosis,  he  knew 
that  a  factional  fight  was  raging  in  the  Republican 
Party.  His  trusty  followers,  and  every  one  who  bore 
a  grudge  against  the  Administration,  urged  him  to 
unfurl  his  flag  and  check  any  further  disintegration ; 
but  prudence  controlled  him  and  he  announced  that 
he  should  not  speak  on  political  matters  for  at  least 
two  months.  He  was  sincere;  but  a  few  days  later 
at  the  Harvard  Commencement  exercises  he  met 
Governor  Hughes,  of  New  York  State,  who  was 
waging  a  fierce  struggle  against  the  Machine  to  put 
through  a  bill  on  primary  elections.  The  Governor 
begged  the  Colonel  as  a  patriotic  boss-hating  citi 
zen,  to  help  him,  and  Roosevelt  hastily  wrote  and 
dispatched  to  Albany  a  telegram  urging  Republicans 
to  support  Hughes.  In  the  result,  his  advice  was  not 
heeded,  a  straw  which  indicated  that  the  Machine 
no  longer  feared  to  disregard  him. 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    337 

For  several  weeks  Roosevelt  waited  and  watched, 
and  found  out  by  personal  investigation  how  the 
Republican  Party  stood.  It  took  little  inspection 
to  show  him  that  the  Taft  Administration  was  not 
carrying  out  his  policies,  and  that  the  elements 
against  which  he  had  striven  for  eight  years  were 
creeping  back.  Indeed,  they  had  crept  back.  It  would 
be  unjust  to  Mr.  Taft  to  assert  that  he  had  not 
continued  the  war  on  Trusts.  Under  his  able  Attor 
ney-General,  Mr.  George  W.  Wickersham,  many 
prosecutions  were  going  forward,  and  in  some  cases 
the  legislation  begun  by  Roosevelt  was  extended 
and  made  more  effective.  I  speak  now  as  to  the 
general  course  of  Mr.  Taft's  Administration  and  not 
specially  of  the  events  of  1910.  In  spite  of  this 
continuation  of  the  battle  with  the  Octopus  —  as 
the  Big  Interests,  Wall  Street,  and  Trusts  were  in 
discriminately  nicknamed  —  the  public  did  not  be 
lieve  that  Mr.  Taft  and  his  assistants  pushed  the 
fight  with  their  whole  heart.  Perhaps  they  were  mis 
judged.  Mr.  Taft  being  in  no  sense  a  spectacular 
person,  whatever  he  did  would  lack  the  spectacular 
quality  which  radiated  from  all  Roosevelt's  actions. 
Then,  too,  the  pioneer  has  deservedly  a  unique  re 
ward.  Just  as  none  of  the  navigators  who  followed 
Columbus  on  the  voyage  to  the  Western  Continent 
could  win  credit  like  his,  so  the  prestige  which  Roose- 


338  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

velt  gained  from  being  the  first  to  grapple  with  the 
great  monopolies  could  not  be  shared  by  any  suc 
cessor  of  his,  who  simply  carried  on  the  work  of 
"trust-busting,"  as  it  was  called,  which  had  be 
come  commonplace. 

Nevertheless,  although  nobody  doubted  Mr. 
Wickersham's  legal  ability,  the  country  felt  that 
during  the  Taft  Administration  zeal  had  gone  out 
of  the  campaign  of  the  Administration  against  the 
Interests.  Roosevelt  had  plunged  into  the  fray  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  Crusader.  Taft  followed  him 
from  afar,  but  without  feeling  the  Crusader's  conse 
cration  or  his  terrible  sincerity.  And  during  the  first 
six  months  of  his  Administration,  President  Taft 
had  unwittingly  given  the  country  the  measure  of 
himself. 

The  Republican  platform  adopted  at  Chicago  de 
clared  "unequivocally  for  a  revision  of  the  tariff  by 
a  special  session  of  Congress,  immediately  following 
the  inauguration  of  the  next  President.  ...  In  all 
tariff  legislation  the  true  principle  of  protection  is 
best  maintained  by  the  imposition  of  such  duties  as 
will  equal  the  difference  between  the  cost  of  produc 
tion  at  home  and  abroad,  together  with  a  reasonable 
profit  to  American  industries.  We  favor  the  estab 
lishment  of  maximum  and  minimum  rates  to  be 
administered  by  the  President  under  limitations 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    339 

fixed  in  the  law,  the  maximum  to  be  available  to 
meet  discriminations  by  foreign  countries  against 
American  goods  entering  their  markets,  and  the 
minimum  to  represent  the  normal  measure  of  pro 
tection  at  home."  The  American  public,  regardless 
of  party,  assumed  that  the  " revision"  referred  to  in 
this  plank  of  the  Republican  platform  meant  a  re 
vision  downward;  and  it  supposed,  from  sayings  and 
opinions  of  Mr.  Taft,  that  he  put  the  same  construc 
tion  upon  it.  He  at  once  called  a  special  session  of 
Congress,  and  a  new  tariff  bill  was  framed  under  the 
direction  of  Sereno  E.  Payne,  a  Stand-Pat  Repub 
lican  member  of  Congress,  Chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Ways  and  Means,  and  Nelson  W.  Aldrich, 
Senator  from  Rhode  Island,  and  guardian  angel  and 
factotum  for  the  Big  Interests.  For  several  months 
these  gentlemen  conducted  the  preparation  of  the 
new  bill.  Payne  had  already  had  experience  in  put 
ting  through  the  McKinley  Tariff  in  1890,  and  the 
Dingley  Tariff  in  1897.  Again  the  committee-room 
was  packed  by  greedy  protectionists  who,  for  a 
consideration,  got  from  the  Government  whatever 
profit  they  paid  for.  Neither  Payne  nor  Aldrich  had 
the  slightest  idea  that  to  fix  tariff  rates  to  enrich 
special  individuals  and  firms  was  a  most  corrupt 
practice.  When  a  Republican  Senator,  who  honestly 
supposed  that  the  revision  would  be  downward,  pri- 


340  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

vately  remonstrated,  the  reply  he  heard  was,  "Where 
shall  we  get  our  campaign  funds?"  Finally,  after 
some  discussion  between  the  House  and  the  Senate 

—  a  discussion  which  did  not  lessen  the  enormities 
of  the  measure  --  the  Payne- Aldrich  Bill  was  passed 
by  Congress  and  signed  by  President  Taft,  and  it 
enjoyed  the  bad  eminence  of  being  worse  than  the 
McKinley  and  the  Dingley  tariffs  which  had  pre 
ceded  it. 

The  public,  which  had  seen  more  clearly  than  on 
former  occasions,  how  such  charters  to  legalize  indus 
trial  piracy  were  devised,  was  somewhat  dashed  by 
President  Taft's  approval.  Perhaps  it  still  hoped 
that  the  creation  of  a  non-partisan  Tariff  Commis 
sion  of  experts  would  put  an  end  to  this  indecent 
purchase  and  sale  of  privileges  and  would  establish 
rates  after  the  scientific  investigation  of  each  case. 
Soon,  however,  these  hopes  were  swept  away;  for 
on  September  17,  1909,  the  President  delivered  at 
Winona,  Minnesota,  a  laudatory  speech  on  the  new 
tariff.  He  admitted  that  some  points  in  Schedule  K 

—  that  comprising  wool  and  woolen  goods  —  were 
too  high.  But,  he  said  solemnly  that  this  was  "the 
best  tariff  law  the  Republicans  ever  made,  and, 
therefore,  the  best  the  country  ever  had."  In  that 
Winona  speech,  Mr.  Taft  hung  a  millstone  round 
his  own  neck.  His  critics  and  his  friends  alike  had 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    341 

thrust  upon  them  this  dilemma :  either  he  knew  that 
the  Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  had  been  arrived  at  by 
corrupt  ways  and  was  not  a  revision  downward  — 
in  spite  of  which  he  pronounced  it  the  "best  ever"; 
or  he  did  not  know  its  nature  and  the  means  used  in 
framing  it.  In  the  latter  case,  he  could  not  be  con 
sidered  a  person  sufficiently  informed  on  great  finan 
cial  questions,  or  on  the  practices  of  some  of  the 
politicians  who  made  laws  for  him  to  sign,  to  be 
qualified  to  sit  in  the  President's  chair.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  knowing  the  measure  to  be  bad  he  de 
clared  it  the  "best  ever,"  he  was  neither  sincere  nor 
honest,  and  in  this  case  also  he  was  not  a  President 
whom  the  country  could  respect. 

I  would  not  imply  that  the  American  public  went 
through  this  process  of  reasoning  at  once,  or  arrived 
at  such  clear-cut  conclusions;  Demos  seldom  in 
dulges  in  the  luxury  of  logic;  but  the  shock  caused 
by  the  Winona  speech  vibrated  through  the  country 
and  never  after  that  did  the  "public  fully  trust  Mr. 
Taft.  It  knew  that  the  Interests  had  crawled  back 
and  dictated  the  Payne-Aldrich  Tariff,  and  it  sur 
mised  that,  although  he  prosecuted  the  Trusts  dili 
gently,  they  did  not  feel  greatly  terrified.  But  no 
body  whispered  or  suspected  that  he  was  not  honest. 

While  President  Taft  slowly  lost  his  hold  on  the 
American  people,  he  gained  proportionately  with  the 


342  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Republican  Machine.  That  Machine  was  composed 
of  the  Regulars  of  the  party,  or  the  Conservatives, 
as  they  preferred  to  be  called,  and  it  was  losing  its 
hold  on  the  country.  There  comes  a  time  in  every 
sect,  party,  or  institution  when  it  stops  growing,  its 
arteries  harden,  its  young  men  see  no  visions,  its 
old  men  dream  no  dreams;  it  lives  in  the  past  and 
desperately  tries  to  perpetuate  the  past.  In  politics 
when  this  process  of  petrifaction  is  reached,  we  call 
it  Bourbonism,  and  the  sure  sign  of  the  Bourbon  is 
that,  being  unconscious  that  he  is  the  victim  of 
sclerosis,  he  sees  no  reason  for  seeking  a  cure.  Unable 
to  adjust  himself  to  change  and  new  conditions  he 
falls  back  into  the  past,  as  an  old  man  drops  into 
his  worn-out  armchair. 

Now  Roosevelt  had  been,  of  course,  the  negation 
of  Bourbonism.  He  had  led  the  Republican  Party 
into  new  fields  and  set  it  to  do  new  work,  and  far  , 
off,  shining  clearly,  its  goal  beckoned  it  on.  His  fol 
lowers  were  mostly  young  men;  they  saw  that  the 
world  had  changed,  and  would  change  still  further, 
and  they  went  forward  valiantly  to  meet  it  and,  if 
possible,  to  shape  its  changes.  For  ten  years  past, 
these  Radicals,  as  the  Regulars  named  them  some 
what  reproachfully,  and  who  were  better  defined  as 
"  Insurgents,"  had  played  an  increasingly  important 
part  in  Congress.  They  would  not  submit  to  the 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    343 

Bosses  and  the  Machine,  but  voted  independently, 
and,  although  they  were  not  all  of  them  avowed 
Rooseveltians,  they  all  were  going  in  his  direction. 
In  the  second  year  of  Mr.  Taft's  Administration, 
they  rebelled  against  the  rigid  dictatorship  of 
Joseph  G.  Cannon,  the  Speaker  of  the  House. 
"Uncle  Joe,"  as  the  public  nicknamed  him,  dated 
from  before  the  Civil  War,  and  entered  Congress  in 
1863,  forty-seven  years  before  1910.  It  was  as  if  a 
rigid  Bourbon,  who  had  served  under  Louis  XV  in 
France  in  1763,  had  been  chief  law-maker  under 
Napoleon  I  in  1810.  Mr.  Cannon,  however,  had 
never  learned  that  the  Civil  War  was  over,  whereas 
every  Frenchman  who  survived  the  Revolution 
knew  that  it  had  taken  place.  So  the  Insurgents  rose 
up  against  him,  in  his  old  age,  deprived  him  of  his 
dictatorial  power,  and,  at  the  next  election,  Demo 
crats  and  Republicans  combined  to  sweep  him  out 
of  office  altogether. 

The  Jews  who  ridiculed  Noah  when  he  began  to 
build  the  Ark  were,  it  proved,  Bourbons,  but  they 
had  some  excuse,  for  when  Noah  was  working  there 
was  no  portent  of  a  flood  and  not  even  a  black  cloud 
with  a  shower  wrapped  up  in  it  hung  on  the  horizon. 
But  the  Republican  Regulars,  under  Mr.  Taft,  could 
not  complain  that  no  sign  had  been  vouchsafed  to 
them.  The  amazing  rise  in  power  and  popularity  of 


344  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  during  the  decade,  the  surging  unrest  of 
Labor  throughout  the  world,  the  obviously  altered 
conditions  which  immense  fortunes  and  the  amassing 
of  wealth  by  a  few  corporations  had  produced,  and 
such  special  symptoms  as  the  chafing  at  the  Payne- 
Aldrich  Tariff,  the  defeat  of  Speaker  Cannon,  and 
the  election  of  a  Democratic  House  of  Representa 
tives  ought  to  have  warned  even  the  dullest  Repub 
lican.  For  good,  or  for  ill,  a  social  and  industrial 
revolution  was  under  way,  and,  instead  of  trimming 
their  sails  to  meet  it,  they  had  not  even  taken  ship. 

Roosevelt  and  the  Insurgents  had  long  understood 
the  revolution  of  which  they  were  a  part,  and  had 
taken  measures  to  control  it.  Roosevelt's  first 
achievement,  as  we  have  seen,  was  to  bring  the  Big 
Interests  under  the  power  of  the  law.  The  hawks 
and  vultures  whose  wings  he  clipped  naturally  did 
not  like  it  or  him,  but  the  laws  had  force  behind 
them,  and  they  submitted.  The  leaders  of  the  popu 
lar  movement,  however,  declared  that  this  was  not 
enough.  They  preached  the  right  of  the  people  to 
rule.  The  people,  they  urged,  must  have  a  real  share 
in  electing  the  men  who  were  to  make  the  laws  and 
to  administer  and  interpret  them. 

Every  one  knew  that  the  system  of  party  govern 
ment  resulted  in  a  Machine,  consisting  of  a  few  men 
who  controlled  the  preliminary  steps  which  led  to 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    345 

the  nomination  of  candidates  and  then  decided  the 
election,  so  far  as  their  control  of  the  regular  party 
members  could  do  this.  It  would  be  idle,  said  the 
advocates  of  these  popular  rights,  to  make  the  best 
of  laws  in  behalf  of  the  people  and  allow  them  to  be 
enforced  by  representatives  and  judges  chosen,  under 
whatever  disguise,  by  the  great  capitalists.  And  so 
these  Progressives,  bent  on  trusting  implicitly  the 
intelligence,  the  unselfishness,  and  the  honesty  of 
the  People,  proposed  three  novel  political  instru 
ments  for  obtaining  the  pure  Democracy  they 
dreamed  of.  First,  the  Initiative,  by  which  a  certain 
number  of  voters  could  suggest  new  laws;  second, 
the  Referendum,  by  which  a  vote  should  be  taken  to 
decide  whether  the  People  approved  or  not  of  a  law 
that  was  in  operation;  and  third,  the  Judicial  Re 
call,  by  which  a  majority  of  the  voters  could  nullify 
a  decision  handed  down  by  a  judge.  This  last  was 
often  misnamed  and  misconstrued,  the  "  Recall  of 
Judges,"  but  so  far  as  I  know  very  few  of  the  Pro 
gressive  leaders,  certainly  not  Colonel  Roosevelt, 
proposed  to  put  the  tenure  of  office  of  a  judge  at  the 
mercy  of  a  sudden  popular  vote. 

When  Roosevelt  returned  from  Africa,  he  found 
that  the  Progressive  movement  had  developed  rap 
idly,  and  the  more  he  thought  over  its  principles, 
the  more  they  appealed  to  him.  To  arrive  at  Social 


346  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Justice  was  his  life-long  endeavor.  In  a  speech  deliv 
ered  on  August  31,  1910,  at  Ossawatomie,  Kansas, 
he  discoursed  on  the  "New  Nationalism."  As  if  to 
push  back  hostile  criticism  at  the  start,  he  quoted 
Abraham  Lincoln:  " Labor  is  prior  to,  and  inde 
pendent  of  capital ;  capital  is  only  the  fruit  of  labor 
and  could  never  have  existed  but  for  labor.  Labor 
is  the  superior  of  capital  and  deserves  much  the 
higher  consideration.  Capital  has  its  rights  which 
are  as  worthy  of  protection  as  any  other  rights.  .  .  . 
Nor  should  this  lead  to  a  war  upon  the  owners  of 
property.  Property  is  the  fruit  of  labor;  property  is 
desirable;  it  is  a  positive  good  in  the  world.  Let  not 
him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the  house  of  another, 
but  let  him  work  diligently  and  build  one  for  him 
self,  thus,  by  example,  showing  that  his  own  shall 
be  safe  from  violence  when  built." 

Not  all  those  who  cry  "  Plato!  Plato!"  are  Platon- 
ists.  So,  not  all  those  who  now  appeal  to  Lincoln's 
mighty  name  for  sanction  of  their  own  petty  caprices 
and  crazy  creeds,  have  learned  the  first  letter  of  the 
alphabet  which  Lincoln  used;  but  Roosevelt,  I  be 
lieve,  knew  Lincoln  better,  knew  the  spirit  of  Lin 
coln  better,  than  any  other  President  has  known  it. 
And  Lincoln  would  have  approved  of  most,  if  not 
of  all,  of  the  measures  which,  in  that  Ossawatomie 
speech,  Roosevelt  declared  must  be  adopted.  When- 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    347 

ever  he  spoke  or  wrote  after  that,  he  repeated  his 
arguments  in  defense  of  the  "New  Nationalism," 
and  they  sank  deep  into  the  public  conscience. 

He  took  no  active  part  in  politics,  as  he  thought, 
but  the  country  knew  better  than  he  did  that,  wher 
ever  he  was,  politics  was  active.  Every  one  consulted 
him ;  his  occasional  speeches  roused  a  storm  of  criti 
cism  ;  a  dozen  would-be  candidates  in  each  party  sat 
on  the  anxious  seat  and  waited  for  his  decision.  So 
he  watched  the  year  1910  draw  to  its  close  and  1911 
wheel  by,  without  his  giving  the  final  word.  Al 
though  he  was  very  really  the  centre  of  attention, 
he  nevertheless  felt  lonely,  and  a  friend  tells  me  of 
going  to  Oyster  Bay,  late  in  the  autumn,  and  finding 
Roosevelt  in  fact  alone,  as  his  family  were  away,  and 
depressed  by  the  thought  that  he  was  cut  off,  prob 
ably  forever,  from  throwing  himself  into  work  which 
would  be  of  public  benefit.  But  Roosevelt  was  a 
fighter,  not  a  sulker,  and  he  was  too  healthy  in  spirit 
to  give  way  to  disappointment. 

That  he  resented  the  purpose,  as  he  supposed,  of 
the  Taft  Administration  to  throw  over  his  policies, 
I  do  not  doubt,  although  there  are  letters  in  exist 
ence  which  indicate  that  he  still  had  courteous  if  not 
friendly  relations  with  President  Taft.  But  what  ate 
into  him  more  than  any  personal  resentment  was 
his  chagrin  at  seeing  the  Great  Cause,  for  which  he 


348  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

had  spent  his  life,  neglected  and  denied  by  the 
Republican  Party.  Progressivism  seemed  to  be 
slowly  in  process  of  suffocation  by  the  Big  Interests 
which  it  had  come  into  being  to  protest  against,  to 
curb,  and  to  control. 

There  were  other  leaders  in  this  Cause,  the  most 
prominent  being  Senator  La  Follette,  of  Wisconsin. 
He  had  caught  up  very  early  some  of  Bryan's  dema 
gogic  doctrines,  which  he  had  softened  a  good  deal 
and  made  palatable  to  the  Republicans  of  his  State. 
Then  he  had  stood  out  as  a  Liberal  in  Congress,  and 
from  Liberal  he  became  Insurgent,  and  now  that 
the  Insurgents  were  being  defined  as  Progressives, 
he  led  the  Progressives  in  Congress.  The  same  spirit 
was  permeating  the  Democrats ;  only  the  hide-bound 
Regular  Republicans  appeared  not  to  notice  that  a 
new  day  had  dawned.  " Uncle  Joe"  Cannon,  their 
Speaker  of  the  House,  reveled  in  his  Bourbonism, 
made  it  as  obnoxious  as  he  could,  and  then  was 
swept  away  by  the  enraged  Liberals. 

By  the  summer  of  1911  the  discussion  of  possible 
candidates  grew  more  heated.  Roosevelt  still  kept 
silent,  but  he  told  his  intimates  that  he  would  not 
run.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  President  again,  especially 
at  the  cost  of  an  internecine  struggle.  I  believe  that 
he  was  sincere;  so  is  the  consummate  actor  or  the 
prima  donna,  whom  the  world  applauds,  sincere  in 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    349 

bidding  farewell  to  the  stage  forever.  Nevertheless, 
which  of  them  is  conscious  of  the  strength  of  the 
passion,  which  long  habit,  and  supremacy,  and  the 
intoxication  of  success  have  evoked,  dwells  in  them? 
Given  the  moment  and  the  lure,  they  forget  their 
promise  of  farewell. 

By  this  time  the  politicians  began  to  foresee  that 
the  dissension  in  the  Republican  Party  would  make 
it  difficult  to  choose  a  candidate  who  could  win. 
Every  President  desires  to  be  reelected  if  he  can  be, 
not  necessarily  because  he  is  greedy  of  power,  but 
because  reelection  is  equivalent  to  public  approval 
of  his  first  term.  Mr.  Taft,  therefore,  stood  out  as 
the  logical  candidate  of  the  Conservatives.  The 
great  majority  of  the  Progressives  desired  Roosevelt, 
but,  since  he  would  say  neither  yes  nor  no,  they 
naturally  turned  to  Senator  La  Follette.  And  La 
Follette  launched  a  vigorous  campaign  for  the  nomi 
nation  and  was  undoubtedly  gaining  ground  except 
in  the  East,  where  some  of  his  views  had  been  re 
garded  as  too  extreme  even  for  the  Liberals.  To  his 
great  misfortune,  in  a  speech  at  Philadelphia  on 
February  2,  1912,  he  showed  signs  of  a  temporary 
mental  collapse  and,  although  his  friends  protested 
that  this  mishap  was  not  serious,  much  less  perma 
nent,  he  never  got  back  into  the  running. 

Meanwhile,  Roosevelt's  nearest  zealots  not  only 


350  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

urged  upon  him  the  duty  of  coming  out  squarely  as 
the  Progressive  aspirant,  but  they  set  up  throughout 
the  country  their  propaganda  for  him.  He  received 
letters  by  the  bushel  and  every  letter  appealed  to  his 
patriotism  and  to  his  sense  of  duty.  The  Progressives 
were  in  dead  earnest.  They  believed  that  the  coun 
try,  if  not  civilization,  had  reached  a  crisis  on  the 
outcome  of  which  would  depend  the  future  health 
and  peace  of  Society.  They  had  a  crusade,  not  a 
mere  political  campaign,  ahead  of  them,  and  they 
could  not  believe  that  Roosevelt,  their  peerless 
champion,  would  fail  them. 

The  average  person,  who  calmly  sits  back  in  his 
easy-chair  and  passes  his  verdict  on  the  acts  of  great 
men,  does  not  always  allow  for  the  play  of  emotions 
which  may  have  influenced  them.  What  sort  of  reac 
tion  must  appeals  like  these  have  stimulated?  How 
can  the  unimaginative  man,  who  has  never  been 
urged  by  his  fellow  townspeople  to  be  even  Trustee 
of  the  Town  library  or  graveyard,  put  himself  in  the 
place  of  a  Leader,  who  is  told  by  millions  of  persons, 
possibly  fanatics  but  not  flatterers,  that  the  destiny 
of  the  Nation  depends  upon  his  listening  to  their 
entreaties? 

Everything  conspired  to  win  Roosevelt  over:  La 
Follette  being  eliminated,  there  was  no  other  Pro 
gressive  whom  the  majority  would  agree  upon.  The 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY?    351 

party  spoke  with  only  one  voice,  and  uttered  only 
one  name.  And,  presently,  the  Governors  of  seven 
States  —  Bass  of  New  Hampshire,  Hadley  of  Mis 
souri,  Osborn  of  Michigan,  Glasscock  of  West  Vir 
ginia,  Carey  of  Wyoming,  Aldrich  of  Nebraska,  and 
Stubbs  of  Kansas  —  issued  an  appeal  to  him  which 
seemed  to  give  an  official  stamp  to  the  popular  en 
treaties.  Roosevelt's  enemies  insinuated  that  the 
seven  Governors  had  been  moved  to  act  at  his  own 
instigation,  and  they  tried  to  belittle  the  entire 
movement  as  a  "frame-up,"  in  the  common  phrase 
of  the  day.  No  doubt  he  was  consulted  in  the  general 
direction  of  the  campaign;  no  doubt,  being  a  very 
alert  student  of  political  effects,  he  suggested  many 
things;  but  the  rush  of  enthusiasts  to  him  was  gen 
uine  and  spontaneous. 

I  happened  to  spend  the  evening  of  February  25, 
1912,  with  him  at  the  house  of  Judge  Robert  Grant 
in  Boston.  Judge  Grant  and  I  were  not  politicians, 
and  I,  at  least,  had  never  voted  for  a  Republican 
Presidential  candidate.  But  both  of  us  were  very  old 
personal  friends  of  the  Colonel,  and  for  five  hours 
we  three  talked  with  the  utmost  frankness.  He  knew 
that  he  could  trust  us,  and,  I  think,  he  planned  to 
get  the  views  of  non-partisan  friends  before  an 
nouncing  his  final  decision.  Three  days  earlier,  at 
Columbus,  Ohio,  he  gave  a  great  speech,  in  which 


352  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  proclaimed  a  new  charter  for  Democracy  and 
vigorously  advocated  the  Initiative,  Referendum, 
and  Recall.  We  discussed  these  from  every  side;  he 
got  the  Outlook  in  which  his  speech  was  printed  and 
read  to  us  passages  which  he  thought  corrected  pop 
ular  misunderstanding  of  it.  When  I  objected  to  the 
platform  in  general,  because  it  would  tend  to  destroy 
representative  government  and  substitute  therefor 
the  whims  of  the  populace  at  the  moment,  he  replied 
that  we  had  no  representative  government.  "I  can 
name  forty-six  Senators,"  he  said,  "who  secured 
their  seats  and  hold  them  by  the  favor  of  a  Wall 
Street  magnate  and  his  associates,  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Do  you  call  that  popular,  representative 
government?"  he  asked. 

The  evening  wore  on,  and  in  similar  fashion  he 
parried  all  our  criticism.  We  urged  him  not  to  be  a 
candidate,  because,  we  said,  we  thought  that  the 
public  ought  to  be  reined  in  and  disciplined,  instead 
of  being  encouraged  to  be  more  lawless  and  self- 
willed.  I  defended  our  judiciary  system  and  said 
that  the  American  people  needed  most  of  all  to  be 
taught  respect  for  the  Courts.  He  explained  that  his 
Recall  of  Judicial  Decisions  did  not  mean,  as  the 
Opposition  alleged,  the  Recall  of  Judges.  Then  we 
urged  him,  for  the  sake  of  his  own  future,  not  to 
engage  in  a  factional  strife  which  might  end  his  use- 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    353 

fulness  to  the  country,  but  he  brushed  aside  every 
argument  based  on  his  selfish  advantage.  "I  wish," 
he  said  to  me,  "to  draw  into  one  dominant  stream 
all  the  intelligent  and  patriotic  elements,  in  order  to 
prepare  against  the  social  upheaval  which  will  other 
wise  overwhelm  us."  "A  great  Central  Party,  such 
as  Cavour  founded  for  the  liberation  of  Italy?" 
said  I.  "Exactly,"  said  he. 

The  thing  which  mainly  struck  me  at  the  time, 
and  which  I  still  vividly  remember,  was  the  Colonel's 
composure  throughout  all  this  debate.  Vehement  he 
was  —  because  he  could  not  describe  even  a  butterfly 
without  vividness  which  easily  passed  into  vehe 
mence  —  but  he  was  in  no  sense  mentally  over 
wrought;  nor  did  he  continually  return  to  one  sub 
ject  like  a  man  with  an  obsession.  His  humor  flashed 
out,  even  at  his  own  expense,  but  he  had  throughout 
the  underlying  gravity  of  one  who  knows  that  he  is 
about  to  make  a  very  important  decision.  I  mention 
these  facts  because  at  the  time,  and  afterward, 
Roosevelt's  enemies  circulated  the  assertion  that 
his  mind  was  unbalanced,  and  that  this  fact  ac 
counted  for  his  break  with  the  regular  Republicans. 
I  have  in  my  hand  a  printed  circular,  issued  by  a 
Chicago  lawyer,  offering  five  thousand  dollars  apiece 
to  each  of  several  hospitals  and  other  charitable 
institutions,  if  Roosevelt  would  allow  himself  to  be 


354  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

examined  by  competent  alienists  and  they  did  not 
pronounce  him  to  be  a  " madman"!  No!  he  was  not 
mad,  but  he  had  the  fervor,  the  courage,  the  im 
patience  of  a  Crusader  about  to  undergo  ordeal  by 
battle. 

From  notes  of  the  conversation  Judge  Grant  made 
at  the  time  I  quote  the  following.  Judge  Grant  asked: 

"Will  any  of  the  party  leaders  support  you?" 
"No,"  he  said,  "none  of  them;  not  even  Lodge,  I  think.  I 
don't  see  how  he  can.  My  support  will  come  from  the  people, 
officered  by  a  few  lieutenants  —  young  men  principally  like 
Governor  Bass,  of  New  Hampshire."  He  said  that  he  realized 
that  the  probabilities  were  all  against  his  nomination ;  that  a 
President  in  office  had  all  the  machinery  on  his  side;  but  that 
of  course  it  wouldn't  do  to  admit  outside  that  he  expected  to 
lose;  that  if  he  could  reach  the  popular  vote  through  direct 
primaries,  he  could  hope  to  win.  It  was  manifest  that  he  be 
lieved  that  it  was  indispensable  for  the  future  good  of  the  Re 
publican  Party  that  he  should  make  the  breach.  When  he 
said  as  much,  I  asked,  "But  the  situation  is  complex,  I  sup 
pose?  You  would  like  to  be  President?"  "You  are  right,"  he 
replied.  "  It  is  complex.  I  like  power;  but  I  care  nothing  to  be 
President  as  President.  I  am  interested  in  these  ideas  of  mine 
and  I  want  to  carry  them  through,  and  feel  that  I  am  the  one 
to  carry  them  through. ".He  said  that  he  believed  the  most 
important  questions  today  were  the  humanitarian  and  eco 
nomic  problems,  and  intimated  that  the  will  of  the  people 
had  been  thwarted  in  these  ways,  especially  by  the  courts  on 
constitutional  grounds,  and  that  reforms  were  urgent. 

As  I  went  out  into  the  midnight,  I  felt  sad,  as 
one  might  after  bidding  farewell  to  a  friend  who  has 
volunteered  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope.  I  did  not  realize 


WHICH  WAS  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  ?    355 

then  the  moral  depth  from  which  Roosevelt's  re 
solve  came,  or  that  he  would  rather  die  for  that 
cause  than  be  victorious  in  any  other. 

The  next  day,  Monday,  February  26th,  he  an 
nounced  to  the  country  that  he  was  a  candidate  for 
the  Republican  nomination. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS 

DURING  the  weeks  while  Roosevelt  had  been 
deliberating  over  "throwing  his  hat  into  the 
ring,"  his  opponents  had  been  busily  gathering  dele 
gates.  By  this  delay  they  gained  a  strategic  advan 
tage.  According  to  the  unholy  custom  which  gave 
to  the  Republicans  in  the  Southern  States  a  quota 
of  delegates  proportioned  to  the  population  and  not 
to  the  number  of  Republican  voters,  a  large  Southern 
delegation  was  pledged  for  Mr.  Taft  very  early. 
Most  of  the  few  Southern  Republicans  were  either 
office-holders  or  negroes;  the  former  naturally  sup 
ported  the  Administration  on  which  their  living 
depended;  the  latter,  whose  votes  were  not  counted, 
also  supported  the  President  from  whom  alone  they 
might  expect  favors.  The  former  slave  States  elected 
216  delegates,  nearly  all  of  whom  went  to  President 
Taft,  making  a  very  good  start  for  him.  In  the 
Northern,  Western,  and  Pacific  States,  however, 
Roosevelt  secured  a  large  proportion  of  the  dele 
gates.  In  the  system  of  direct  primaries,  by  which 
the  people  indicated  their  preference  instead  of  hav 
ing  the  candidates  chosen  in  the  State  Conventions, 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  357 

which  were  controlled  by  the  Machine,  the  Progres 
sives  came  out  far  ahead.  Thus,  in  North  Dakota, 
President  Taft  had  less  than  4000  votes  out  of  48,000 
cast,  the  rest  going  to,  Roosevelt  and  La  Follette.  In 
several  of  the  great  States  he  carried  everything 
before  him.  In  Illinois,  his  majority  was  139,000 
over  Taft's;  in  Pennsylvania,  67  of  the  76  delegates 
went  to  him.  In  Ohio,  the  President's  own  State,  the 
Taft  forces  were  " snowed  under";  in  California,  a 
stronghold  of  Progressivism,  Roosevelt  had  a  large 
plurality.  Nevertheless,  wherever  the  Regulars  con 
trolled  the  voting,  they  usually  brought  President 
Taft  to  the  front.  Even  when  they  could  not  produce 
the  votes,  they  managed  to  send  out  contesting 
delegations. 

On  looking  back,  it  appears  indisputable  that  if 
the  Republicans  could  then  have  cast  their  ballots 
they  would  have  been  overwhelmingly  for  Roose 
velt;  and  if  the  Roosevelt  delegates  to  the  Conven 
tion  had  not  been  hampered  in  voting,  they  too 
would  have  nominated  him.  But  the  elections  had 
been  so  artfully  manipulated  that,  when  the  Con 
vention  met,  there  were  220  contests.  Everybody 
understood  that  the  final  result  hung  on  the  way  in 
which  these  should  be  decided. 

The  Convention  assembled  in  the  great  Coliseum 
Hall  at  Chicago  on  June  18,  1912.  But  for  ten  days 


358  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  hosts  had  been  coming  in,  one  delegation  after 
another;  the  hotels  were  packed;  each  committee 
had  its  special  quarters;  crowds  of  sight-seers,  shout- 
ers,  and  supporters  swelled  the  multitude.  The  Re 
publican  National  Committee  met ;  the  managers  of 
each  candidate  met.  The  committees,  which  had  not 
yet  an  official  standing,  conferred  unofficially.  Ru 
mors  floated  from  every  room;  there  were  secret 
conferences,  attempts  to  win  over  delegates,  prom 
ises  to  trade  votes,  and  even  efforts  at  concilia 
tion.  Night  and  day  this  wild  torrent  of  excitement 
rushed  on. 

A  spectator  from  Mars  might  have  remarked: 
"But  for  so  important  a  business  as  the  choice  of  a 
candidate  who  may  become  President  of  the  United 
States,  you  ought  to  have  quiet,  deliberation,  free 
play,  not  for  those  who  can  shout  loudest,  but  for 
those  who  can  speak  wisest."  And  to  this  remark, 
the  howling  and  whirling  dervishes  who  attended 
the  Convention  would  have  replied,  if  they  had 
waited  long  enough  to  hear  it  through,  by  yelling, 

"Hail!  Hail!  the  gang's  all  here! 
What  the  hell  do  we  care? 
What  the  hell  do  we  care?" 

and  would  have  darted  off  to  catch  up  with  their  fel 
low  Bacchanals.  A  smell  of  cocktails  and  of  whiskey 
was  ubiquitous;  a  dense  pall  of  tobacco  smoke  per- 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  359 

vaded  the  committee-rooms;  and  out  of  doors  the 
clang  of  brass  bands  drowned  even  the  incessant 
noise  of  the  throngs.  There  was  no  night,  for  the 
myriads  of  electric  lights  made  shadows  but  no  dark 
ness,  and  you  wondered  when  these  strange  crea 
tures  slept. 

Such  Saturnalia  did  not  begin  with  the  Conven 
tion  of  1912.  Most  of  those  who  took  part  in  them 
hardly  thought  it  a  paradox  that  these  should  be 
the  conditions  under  which  the  Americans  nomi 
nated  their  candidates  for  President. 

Roosevelt  had  not  intended  to  appear  at  the 
Convention,  but  when  he  discovered  that  the  long 
distance  telephone  from  Chicago  to  Oyster  Bay,  by 
which  his  managers  conferred  with  him,  was  being 
tapped,  he  changed  his  mind.  He  perceived,  also, 
that  there  was  a  lack  of  vigorous  leadership  among 
those  managers  which  demanded  his  presence.  By 
going,  he  would  call  down  much  adverse  criticism, 
even  from  some  of  those  persons  whose  support  he 
needed.  On  the  other  hand,  he  would  immensely 
strengthen  his  cause  in  Chicago,  where  the  mere 
sight  of  him  would  stimulate  enthusiasm. 

So  he  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  took  the  five-thirty 
afternoon  train  to  Chicago,  on  Friday,  June  I4th, 
leaving  as  privately  as  possible,  and  accompanied 
by  seven  or  eight  of  their  children  and  cousins.  Late 


36o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

on  Saturday,  the  train,  having  narrowly  escaped 
being  wrecked  by  an  accident,  reached  Chicago.  At 
the  station  there  was  an  enormous  crowd.  Roose 
velt's  young  kinsmen  kept  very  close  to  him  and 
wedged  their  way  to  an  automobile.  With  the  great 
est  difficulty  his  car  slowly  proceeded  to  the  Con 
gress  Hotel.  Never  was  there  such  a  furor  of  welcome. 
Everybody  wore  a  Roosevelt  button.  Everybody 
cheered  for  "  Teddy."  Here  and  there  they  passed 
State  delegations  bearing  banners  and  mottoes. 
Rough  Riders,  who  had  come  in  their  well-worn  uni 
forms,  added  to  the  Rooseveltian  exultation.  Who 
ever  judged  by  this  demonstration  must  think  it 
impossible  that  the  Colonel  could  be  defeated. 

After  he  and  his  party  had  been  shown  to  the 
suites  reserved  for  them,  he  went  out  on  the  balcony 
of  a  second-floor  room  and  spoke  a  few  words  to  the 
immense  multitude  waiting  below.  He  said,  in  sub 
stance,  that  he  was  glad  to  find  from  their  cheers 
that  Chicago  did  not  believe  in  the  thieves  who  stole 
delegates.  Some  who  saw  him  say  that  his  face  was 
red  with  anger;  others  aver  that  he  was  no  more 
vehement  than  usual,  and  simply  strained  himself 
to  the  utmost  to  make  his  voice  carry  throughout  his 
audience.  Still,  if  he  said  what  they  report,  he  was 
not  politic. 

Then  followed  days  and  nights  of  incessant  strain. 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  361 

The  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  had  their  personal 
apartment  in  the  northeast  corner  of  the  hotel,  at 
some  distance  from  the  Florentine  Room,  which 
served  as  the  official  headquarters  for  the  Progres 
sives.  He  had,  besides,  a  private  office  with  a  recep 
tion-room,  and  Tyree,  one  of  the  devoted  detectives 
who  had  served  under  him  in  old  times,  carefully 
guarded  the  entrance.  There  was  hardly  a  moment 
when  one  or  two  persons  were  not  closeted  with  him. 
Occasionally,  he  would  come  out  into  the  reception- 
room  and  speak  to  the  throng  waiting  there.  No 
matter  what  the  news,  no  matter  how  early  or  late 
the  hour,  he  was  always  cheerful,  and  the  mere  sight 
of  him  brought  joy  and  confidence  to  his  followers. 
The  young  kinsmen  went  everywhere  and  brought 
back  reports  of  what  they  had  seen  or  heard.  One  of 
them  kept  a  diary  of  the  events  as  they  whirled  past, 
hour  by  hour,  and  in  this  one  can  note  many  of  the 
fleeting  but  vivid  touches,  which  recall  to  the  reader 
now  the  reality  of  those  feverish  days.  He  attended 
a  big  Taft  rally  at  the  Taft  headquarters.  Bell-boys 
ran  up  and  down  the  hotel  corridors  announcing 
it.  "After  each  announcement/'  writes  the  young 
cousin,  "a  group  of  Roosevelt  men  would  cry  out, 
'All  postmasters  attend!"  Two  Taftites  spoke 
briefly  and  "were  greeted  by  a  couple  of  hand 
claps  apiece;  and  then  the  star  performer  of  the 


362  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

evening  was  announced  in  the  most  glowing  terms 
as  a  model  of  political  propriety,  and  the  foremost 
and  most  upright  citizen  of  the  United  States  - 
William  Barnes,  Jr.,  of  Albany."  Mr.  Barnes  was 
supposed,  at  that  time,  to  lead  the  New  York  Repub 
lican  Machine.  "  We  have  got  to  save  the  country," 
he  said,  "save  the  constitution,  save  our  liberty. 
We  are  in  danger  of  monarchy.  The  country  must  be 
saved!!"  The  Roosevelt  cousin  thought  that  he 
spoke  "  without  fervor  to  a  listless,  sedate,  and  very 
polite  audience.  It  was  made  all  the  more  preposter 
ous  by  the  fact  that  a  very  ancient  colored  gentle 
man  stood  back  of  Barnes,  and  whenever  Barnes 
paused,  would  point  to  the  crowd  and  feebly  begin 
clapping  his  hands.  They  would  then  slowly  and 
very  politely  take  up  the  applause,  in  every  case 
waiting  for  his  signal.  It  was  almost  pathetic." 

At  one  time  the  Roosevelt  scouts  alleged  that 
11  Timothy  Woodruff  is  wavering,  with  four  other 
delegates,  and  will  soon  fall  to  us,"  and  told  "of  dele 
gates  flopping  over,  here  and  there."  A  still  more  ex 
traordinary  piece  of  news  came  from  Hooker  to  the 
effect  that  he  had  in  some  way  intercepted  a  tele 
gram  "from  Murray  Crane  to  his  nephew  saying 
that  Crane  and  Barnes  would  'fight  or  ruin'  and 
that  it  was  now  'use  any  means  and  sacrifice  the 
Republican  Party.'  Had  it  not  been  for  the  way  he 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  363 

told  us,  I  could  n't  have  believed  such  a  thing 
possible." 

Rumors  like  these  were  not  verified  at  the  time, 
and  they  are  assuredly  unverifiable  now.  I  repeat 
them  merely  to  show  how  suspense  and  excitement 
were  constantly  fed  before  the  Convention  met. 
Remembering  how  long  ex-Senator  Crane  and  Mr. 
Barnes  had  had  their  hands  on  the  throttle  of  the 
Republican  Machine,  we  are  not  surprised  at  the 
young  Rooseveltian's  statement:  "The  Taft  forces 
control  anything  that  has  to  do  with  machinery,  but 
all  the  feeling  is  for  Roosevelt,  and  the  Congress 
Hotel,  at  any  rate,  favors  the  'Big  Noise/  as  you 
will  sometimes  hear  him  called  in  the  lobbies  or  in 
the  streets."  Apparently,  stump  speeches  were  made 
at  any  moment,  and  without  provocation,  in  any 
hall,  room,  or  lobby  of  the  hotel,  by  any  one  who 
felt  the  spirit  move  him;  and,  lest  silence  should 
settle  down  and  soothe  the  jaded  nerves,  a  band 
would  strike  up  unexpectedly.  The  marching  to  and 
fro  of  unrestrained  gangs,  shouting,  "We-want- 
Teddy!"  completed  the  pandemonium. 

Monday  came.  The  young  scouts  were  as  busy  as 
ever  in  following  the  trails  which  led  to  Taft  activ 
ities.  The  news  they  had  to  tell  was  always  very 
cheering.  They  found  little  enthusiasm  among  the 
President's  supporters.  They  heard,  from  the  most 


364  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

trustworthy  sources,  that  this  or  that  Taft  leader  or 
delegation  was  coming  over.  And,  in  truth,  the  Taft 
body  probably  did  not  let  off  a  tenth  of  the  noise 
which  their  opponents  indulged  in.  The  shallows 
murmur,  but  the  deeps  are  dumb,  does  not  exactly 
apply  to  the  two  opposing  hosts.  The  Taft  men  re 
sorted  very  little  to  shouting,  because  they  knew 
that  if  they  were  to  win  at  all  it  must  be  by  other 
means.  The  Rooseveltians,  on  the  other  hand,  really 
felt  a  compelling  surge  of  enthusiasm  which  they 
must  uncork. 

Meanwhile  Colonel  Roosevelt  and  his  lieutenants 
knew  that  the  enemy  was  perfecting  his  plan  to  de 
feat  them.  On  Monday  evening  his  zealots  packed 
the  Auditorium  and  he  poured  himself  out  to  them 
in  one  of  his  torrential  speeches  calculated  to  rouse 
the  passions  rather  than  the  minds  of  his  hearers. 
But  it  fitly  symbolized  the  situation.  He,  the  daunt 
less  leader,  stood  there,  the  soul  of  sincerity  and 
courage,  impressing  upon  them  all  that  they  were 
engaged  in  a  most  solemn  cause  and  defying  the 
opposition  as  if  it  were  a  legion  of  evil  spirits.  His 
closing  words  —  "We  stand  at  Armageddon  and 
we  battle  for  the  Lord"  •  -  summed  it  all  up  so  com 
pletely  that  the  audience  burst  into  a  roar  of  ap 
proval,  and  never  doubted  that  he  spoke  the  truth. 

Tuesday  at  noon,  a  crowd  of  fifteen  thousand  per- 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  365 

sons,  delegates  and  visitors,  packed  the  vast  Con 
vention  Hall  of  the  Coliseum.  Mr.  Victor  Rosewater, 
of  Nebraska,  presided  at  the  opening.  As  it  was 
known  that  the  Republican  National  Committee  in 
tended  to  place  on  the  temporary  roll  of  delegates 
seventy-two  names  of  persons  whose  seats  were 
contested,  Governor  Hadley,  of  Missouri,  made  a  mo 
tion  that  only  those  delegates,  whose  right  was  not 
contested,  should  sit  and  vote  during  the  prelimi 
nary  proceedings.  Had  he  been  successful,  the  Regu 
lars  would  have  lost  the  battle  from  the  beginning. 
But  he  was  ruled  out  of  order  on  the  ground  that  the 
only  business  before  the  Convention  was  the  election 
of  a  Temporary  Chairman.  This  took  place,  and  Sen 
ator  Root,  from  New  York,  was  elected  by  558  votes; 
McGovern,  the  Roosevelt  candidate,  received  501 
votes;  there  were  14  scattering,  and  5  persons  did 
not  vote.  Senator  Root,  therefore,  won  his  election 
by  38  votes  over  the  combined  opposition,  but  his 
plurality  was  secured  by  the  votes  of*  the  72  whose 
seats  were  contested. 

During  the  three  following  days  the  Roosevelt 
men  fought  desperately  to  secure  what  they  believed 
to  be  justice.  They  challenged  every  delegate,  they 
demanded  a  roll-call  on  the  slightest  excuse,  they 
deluged  the  Regulars  with  alternate  showers  of  sar 
casm  and  anger.  But  it  availed  them  nothing.  They 


366  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

soon  perceived  that  victory  lay  with  the  Republican 
National  Committee,  which  had  the  organization  of 
the  Convention  and  the  framing  of  the  rules  of  pro 
cedure.  The  Taft  people,  the  Regulars,  controlled 
the  National  Committee,  and  they  knew  that  the 
rules  would  do  the  rest,  especially  since  the  Chair 
man  of  the  Convention,  Senator  Root,  was  the  inter 
preter  of  the  rules. 

At  no  other  National  Convention  in  American  his 
tory  did  a  Chairman  keep  his  head  and  his  temper 
so  admirably  as  did  Mr.  Root  on  this  occasion.  His 
intellect,  burning  with  a  cold,  white  light,  illumined 
every  point,  but  betrayed  no  heat  of  passion.  He  ap 
plied  the  rules  as  impartially  as  if  they  were  theorems 
of  algebra.  Time  after  time  the  Rooseveltians  pro 
tested  against  the  holders  of  contested  seats  to  vote, 
but  he  was  unmoved  because  the  rule  prescribed 
that  the  person  had  a  right  to  vote.  When  the  con 
tests  were  taken  up,  the  Taft  men  always  won,  the 
Roosevelt  men  always  lost.  The  Machine  went  as  if 
by  clock-work  or  like  the  guillotine.  More  than  once 
some  Rooseveltian  leader,  like  Governor  Hadley, 
stung  by  a  particularly  shocking  display  of  over 
bearing  injustice,  taunted  the  majority  with  shouts 
of  "Robbers"  and  "Theft."  Roars  of  passion  swept 
through  the  hall.  The  derision  of  the  minority  was 
countered  by  the  majority  with  equal  vigor,  but  the 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  367 

majority  did  not  always  feel,  in  spite  of  its  truculent 
manner,  confident  of  the  outcome. 

By  what  now  seems  shameless  theft,  the  Creden 
tials  Committee  approved  the  seating  of  two  Taft 
delegates  from  California,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
proper  officials  of  that  State  had  certified  that  its 
twenty-six  delegates  were  all  for  Roosevelt,  and  had 
been  elected  by  a  majority  of  76,000  votes.  Chairman 
Root  put  the  question  to  the  Convention,  however, 
and  those  two  discredited  delegates  were  admitted 
for  Taft  by  a  vote  of  542  to  529.  This  indicates  how 
close  the  Convention  then  stood,  when  a  change  of 
seven  votes  would  have  given  Roosevelt  a  majority 
of  one  and  have  added  to  his  list  the  two  California 
delegates  who  were  counted  out.  Had  such  a  change 
taken  place,  those  who  watched  the  Convention 
believed  there  would  have  been  a  " landslide"  to 
Roosevelt.  But  the  Republican  Committee's  sorely 
tested  rules  held.  After  that,  the  Rooseveltians  saw 
no  gleam  of  hope. 

On  Saturday,  June  22d,  the  list  of  delegates  to  the 
Convention  having  been  drawn  up  as  the  Republican 
Machine  intended,  Mr.  Taft  was  nominated  by  a 
vote  of  561;  Roosevelt  received  107,  La  Follette 
41,  Cummins  17,  Hughes  2;  344  delegates  did  not 
vote.  The  last  were  all  Roosevelt  men,  but  they  had 
been  requested  by  Roosevelt  to  refuse  to  vote. 


368  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Through  Mr.  Henry  J.  Allen,  of  Kansas,  he  sent 
this  message: 

The  Convention  has  now  declined  to  purge  the  roll  of  the 
fraudulent  delegates  placed  thereon  by  the  defunct  National 
Committee,  and  the  majority  which  thus  endorsed  fraud  was 
made  a  majority  only  because  it  included  the  fraudulent  dele 
gates  themselves,  who  all  sat  as  judges  on  one  another's  cases. 
If  these  fraudulent  votes  had  not  thus  been  cast  and  counted 
the  Convention  would  have  been  purged  of  their  presence. 
This  action  makes  the  Convention  in  no  proper  sense  any 
longer  a  Republican  Convention  representing  the  real  Re 
publican  Party.  Therefore,  I  hope  the  men  elected  as  Roose 
velt  delegates  will  now  decline  to  vote  on  any  matter  before 
the  Convention.  I  do  not  release  any  delegate  from  his  hon 
orable  obligation  to  vote  for  me  if  he  votes  at  all,  but  under 
the  actual  conditions  I  hope  that  he  will  not  vote  at  all. 

The  Convention  as  now  composed  has  no  claim  to  represent 
the  voters  of  the  Republican  Party.  It  represents  nothing  but 
successful  fraud  in  overriding  the  will  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  party.  Any  man  nominated  by  the  Convention  as  now 
constituted  would  be  merely  the  beneficiary  of  this  successful 
fraud ;  it  would  be  deeply  discreditable  to  any  man  to  accept 
the  Convention's  nomination  under  these  circumstances;  and 
any  man  thus  accepting  it  would  have  no  claim  to  the  support 
of  any  Republican  on  party  grounds,  and  would  have  forfeited 
the  right  to  ask  the  support  of  any  honest  man  of  any  party 
on  moral  grounds. 

Mr.  Allen  concluded  with  these  words  of  his  own : 

We  do  not  bolt.  We  merely  insist  that  you,  not  we,  are 
making  the  record.  And  we  refuse  to  be  bound  by  it.  We  have 
pleaded  with  you  ten  days.  We  have  fought  with  you  five 
days  for  a  square  deal.  We  fight  no  more,  we  plead  no  longer. 
We  shall  sit  in  protest  and  the  people  who  sent  us  here  shall 
judge  us. 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  369 

Gentlemen,  you  accuse  us  of  being  radical.  Let  me  tell  you 
that  no  radical  in  the  ranks  of  radicalism  ever  did  so  radical 
a  thing  as  to  come  to  a  National  Convention  of  the  great 
Republican  Party  and  secure  through  fraud  the  nomination 
of  a  man  whom  they  knew  could  not  be  elected.1 

Every  night  during  that  momentous  week  the 
Roosevelt  delegates  met  in  the  Congress  Hotel, 
talked  over  the  day's  proceedings,  gave  vent  to  their 
indignation,  confirmed  each  other's  resolution,  and 
took  a  decision  as  to  their  future  action.  The  powerful 
Hiram  Johnson,  Governor  of  California,  led  them, 
and  through  his  eloquence  he  persuaded  all  but  107 
of  them  to  stand  by  Roosevelt  whether  he  were  nom 
inated  by  the  Convention  or  not. 

And  this  they  did.  For  when  the  vote  for  the  nom 
ination  was  taken  at  the  Convention  only  107  of  the 
Roosevelt  men  cast  their  ballots.  They  favored 
Roosevelt,  but  they  were  not  prepared  to  quit  the 
Republican  Party.  During  the  roll-call  the  Roose 
velt  delegates  from  Massachusetts  refused  to  vote. 
Thereupon,  Mr.  Root,  the  Chairman,  ruled  that  they 
must  vote,  to  which  Frederick  Fosdick  replied,  when 
his  name  was  read  again,  "  Present,  and  not  voting.  I 
defy  the  Convention  to  make  me  vote  for  any  man  " ; 
and  seventeen  other  Roosevelt  delegates  refrained. 
Mr.  Root  then  called  up  the  alternates  of  these  ab- 

1  Fifteenth  Republican  National  Convention  (New  York,  1912),  333, 
335- 


370  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

stainers  and  three  of  them  recorded  their  votes  for 
Taft,  but  there  was  such  a  demonstration  against 
this  ruling  that  Mr.  Root  thought  better  of  it  and 
proceeded  in  it  no  farther.  Many  of  his  Republican 
associates  at  the  time  thought  this  action  high 
handed  and  unjustified,  and  many  more  agree  in 
this  opinion  today. 

Except  for  this  grave  error,  Mr.  Root's  rulings 
were  strictly  according  to  the  precedents  and  di 
rections  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and 
we  may  believe  that  even  he  saw  the  sardonic  humor 
of  his  unvarying  application  of  them  at  the  expense  of 
the  Rooseveltians.  Before  the  first  day's  session  was 
over,  the  process  was  popularly  called  the  "  steam 
roller."  Late  in  the  week,  a  delegate  rose  to  a  point 
of  order,  and  on  being  recognized  by  the  Chairman, 
he  shouted  that  he  wished  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
Chairman  to  the  fact  that  the  steam  roller  was  ex 
ceeding  its  speed  limit,  at  which  Mr.  Root  replied, 
'The  Chairman  rules  that  the  gentleman's  point  of 
order  is  well  taken."  And  everybody  laughed. 

There  was  one  dramatic  moment  which,  as  Dean 
Lewis  remarks,  has  had  no  counterpart  in  a  National 
Convention.  When  the  Machine  had  succeeded,  in 
spite  of  protests  and  evidence,  in  stealing  the  two 
delegates  from  California,  the  friends  of  Mr.  Taft 
gave  triumphant  cheers.  Then  the  Roosevelt  men 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  371 

rose  up  as  one  man  and  sent  forth  a  mighty  cheer 
which  astonished  their  opponents.  It  was  a  cheer  in 
which  were  mingled  indignation  and  scorn,  and, 
above  all,  relief.  Strictly  interpreted,  it  meant  that 
those  men  who  had  sat  for  four  days  and  seen  their 
wishes  thwarted,  by  what  they  regarded  as  fraud, 
and  had  held  on  in  the  belief  that  this  fraud  could 
not  continue  to  the  end,  that  a  sense  of  fairness  would 
return  and  rule  the  Regulars,  now  realized  that  Fraud 
would  concede  nothing  and  that  their  Cause  was 
lost.  And  they  felt  a  great  load  lifted.  No  obligation 
bound  them  any  longer  to  the  Republican  Party 
which  had  renounced  honesty  in  its  principles  and 
fair  play  in  its  practice.  Henceforth  they  could  go 
out  and  take  any  step  they  chose  to  promote  their 
Progressive  doctrines.1 

Shortly  after  the  Convention  adjourned,  having, 
by  these  methods,  nominated  Mr.  Taft  and  James  S. 
Sherman  for  President  and  Vice-President,  the  Roose- 
veltians  held  a  great  meeting  in  Orchestra  Hall. 
Governor  Johnson  presided  and  apparently  a  major 
ity  of  the  Rooseveltians  wished,  then  and  there,  to 
organize  a  new  party  and  to  nominate  Roosevelt  as 
its  candidate.  Several  men  made  brief  but  earnest 
addresses.  Then  Roosevelt  himself  spoke,  and  al 
though  he  lacked  nothing  of  his  usual  vehemence, 

1  Lewis,  363. 


372  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  seemed  to  be  controlled  by  a  sense  of  the  solem 
nity  of  their  purpose.  He  told  them  that  it  was  no 
more  a  question  of  Progressivism,  which  he  ardently 
believed  in,  but  a  question  of  fundamental  honesty 
and  right,  which  everybody  ought  to  believe  in  and 
uphold.  He  advised  them  to  go  to  their  homes,  to 
discuss  the  crisis  with  their  friends;  to  gain  what  ad 
herence  and  support  they  could,  and  to  return  in  two 
months  and  formally  organize  their  party  and  nom 
inate  their  candidate  for  President.  And  he  added: 
"If  you  wish  me  to  make  the  fight,  I  will  make  it, 
even  if  only  one  State  should  support  me.  The  only 
condition  I  impose  is  that  you  shall  feel  entirely  free, 
when  you  come  together,  to  substitute  any  other 
man  in  my  place,  if  you  deem  it  better  for  the  move 
ment,  and  in  such  case,  I  will  give  him  my  heartiest 
support." 

And  so  the  defeated  majority  of  the  Republicans 
at  Chicago,  Republicans  no  longer,  broke  up.  There 
were  many  earnest  hand-shakings,  many  pledges  to 
meet  again  in  August,  and  to  take  up  the  great  work. 
Those  who  intended  to  stay  by  the  Republican  Party, 
not  less  than  those  who  cast  their  lot  with  the  Pro 
gressives,  bade  farewell,  with  deep  emotion,  to  the 
Leader  whom  they  had  wished  to  see  at  the  head  of 
the  Republican  Party.  Chief  among  these  was  Gov 
ernor  Hadley,  of  Missouri,  who  at  one  moment,  dur- 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  373 

ing  the  Convention,  seemed  likely  to  be  brought  for 
ward  by  the  Regulars  as  a  compromise  candidate. 
Some  of  the  Progressives  resented  his  defection  from 
them;  not  so  Roosevelt,  who  said:  "He  will  not  be 
with  us,  but  we  must  not  blame  him." 

Six  weeks  later,  the  Progressives  returned  to  Chi 
cago.  Again,  Roosevelt  had  his  headquarters  at  the 
Congress  Hotel.  Again,  the  delegates,  among  whom 
were  several  women,  met  at  the  Coliseum.  Crowds  of 
enthusiastic  supporters  and  larger  crowds  of  curiosity- 
seekers  swarmed  into  the  vast  building.  On  Monday, 
August  5,  the  first  session  of  the  Progressive  Party's 
Convention  was  held.  Senator  Albert  J.  Beveridge, 
of  Indiana,  made  the  opening  address,  in  which  he 
defined  the  principles  of  their  party  and  the  objects 
it  hoped  to  obtain.  Throughout  the  proceedings 
there  was  much  enthusiasm,  but  no  battle.  It  was 
rather  the  gathering  of  several  thousand  very  ear 
nest  men  and  women  bent  on  consecrating  them 
selves  to  a  new  Cause,  which  they  believed  to  be  the 
paramount  Cause  for  the  political,  economic,  and 
social  welfare  of  their  country.  Nearly  all  of  them 
were  Idealists,  eager  to  secure  the  victory  of  some 
special  reform.  And,  no  doubt,  an  impartial  observer 
might  have  detected  among  them  traces  of  that 
" lunatic  fringe,"  which  Roosevelt  himself  had  long 
ago  humorously  remarked  clung  to  the  skirts  of  every 


374  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

reform.  But  the  whole  body,  judged  without  preju 
dice,  probably  contained  the  largest  number  of  disin 
terested,  public-spirited,  and  devoted  persons,  who 
had  ever  met  for  a  national  and  political  object  since 
the  group  which  formed  the  Republican  Party  in 

1854- 

The  professional  politician  who  usually  prepon 
derates  in  such  Conventions,  and,  in  the  last,  had 
usurped  control  both  of  the  proceedings  and  decisions, 
had  little  place  here.  The  chief  topic  of  discussion 
turned  on  the  admission  of  negro  delegates  from  the 
South.  Roosevelt  believed  that  an  attempt  to  create 
a  negro  Progressive  Party,  as  such,  would  alienate 
the  Southern  whites  and  would  certainly  sharpen 
their  hostility  towards  the  blacks.  Therefore,  he  ad 
vised  that  the  negro  delegates  ought  to  be  approved 
by  the  White  Progressives  in  their  several  districts. 
In  other  words,  the  Progressive  Party  in  the  South 
should  be  a  white  party  with  such  colored  members 
as  the  whites  found  acceptable. 

On  Monday  and  Tuesday  the  work  done  in  the 
Convention  was  much  less  important  than  that  done 
by  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  and  by  the  Com 
mittee  on  Credentials.  On  Wednesday  the  Conven 
tion  heard  and  adopted  the  Platform  and  then  nomi 
nated  Roosevelt  by  acclamation.  Miss  Jane  Addams, 
of  Hull  House,  Chicago,  seconded  the  nomination, 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  375 

praising  Roosevelt  as  "one  of  the  few  men  in  our 
public  life  who  has  been  responsive  to  modern  move 
ment."  "The  program, "  she  said,  "will  need  a  leader 
of  invincible  courage,  of  open  mind,  of  democratic 
sympathies  —  one  endowed  with  power  to  inter 
pret  the  common  man,  and  to  identify  himself  with 
the  common  lot."  Governor  Hiram  Johnson,  from 
California,  was  nominated  for  Vice-President.  Over 
the  platform,  to  which  the  candidates  were  escorted, 
hung  Kipling's  stanza : 

"For  there  is  neither  East  nor  West, 

Border  nor  breed  nor  birth, 
When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face, 

Though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

Portraits  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  Lincoln,  Jackson, 
and  Hamilton,  a  sufficiently  inclusive  group  of  patri 
ots,  looked  down  upon  them.  After  Roosevelt  and 
Johnson  addressed  the  audience,  the  trombones 
sounded  "Old  Hundred"  and  the  great  meeting 
closed  to  the  words  - 

" Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow." 

The  Progressive  Platform  contained  many  planks 
which  have  since  been  made  laws  by  the  Democratic 
Party,  which  read  the  signs  of  the  times  more  quickly 
than  did  the  Republicans.  Especially  many  of  the 
suggestions  relating  to  Labor,  the  improvement  of 
the  currency,  the  control  of  corporate  wealth,  and 


376  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

oversight  over  public  hygiene,  should  be  commended. 
In  general,  it  promised  to  bring  the  Government 
nearer  to  the  people  by  giving  the  people  a  more  and 
more  direct  right  over  the  Government.  It  declared 
for  a  rational  tariff  and  the  creation  of  a  non-partisan 
Tariff  Commission  of  experts,  and  it  denounced 
alike  the  Republicans  for  the  Payne-Aldrich  Bill, 
which  dishonestly  revised  upwards,  and  the  Demo 
crats,  who  wished  to  abolish  protection  altogether. 
It  urged  proper  military  and  naval  preparation  and 
the  building  of  two  battleships  a  year  —  a  plank 
which  we  can  imagine  Roosevelt  wrote  in  with  pecul 
iar  satisfaction.  It  advocated  direct  primaries;  the 
conservation  of  natural  resources;  woman  suffrage. 
So  rapidly  has  the  country  progressed  in  seven 
years  that  most  of  the  recommendations  have  al 
ready  been  adopted,  and  are  among  the  common 
places  which  nobody  disputes  any  longer.  But  the 
Initiative,  the  Referendum,  and  the  Recall  of  Judi 
cial  Decisions  were  the  points,  as  I  remarked  above, 
over  which  the  country  debated  most  hotly.  The  Re 
call,  in  particular,  created  a  widespread  alarm,  and 
just  as  Roosevelt's  demand  for  it  in  his  Columbus 
speech  prevented,  as  I  believe,  his  nomination  by  the 
Republican  Convention  in  June,  so  it  deprived  the 
Progressives  at  the  election  in  November  of  scores  of 
thousands  of  votes.  The  people  of  the  United  States 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  377 

—  every  person  who  owned  a  bit  of  property,  a  stock 
or  a  bond,  or  who  had  ten  dollars  or  more  in  the  sav 
ings  bank  —  looked  upon  it  almost  with  consterna 
tion.  For  they  knew  that  they  were  living  in  a  time  of 
flux,  when  old  standards  were  melting  away  like  snow 
images  in  the  sun,  when  new  ideals,  untried  and  based 
on  the  negation  of  some  of  the  oldest  principles  in 
our  civilization,  were  being  pushed  forward.  They  in 
stinctively  rallied  to  uphold  Law,  the  slow  product 
of  centuries  of  growth,  the  sheet  anchor  of  Society 
in  a  time  of  change.  Where  could  we  look  for  solidity, 
or  permanence,  if  judicial  decisions  could  be  recalled 
at  the  caprice  of  the  mob  —  the  hysterical,  the  un- 
instructed,  the  fickle  mob?  The  opinion  of  one 
trained  and  honest  judge  outweighs  the  whims  of 
ten  thousand  of  the  social  dregs. 

The  Recall  of  Judicial  Decisions,  therefore,  caused 
many  of  Roosevelt's  friends,  and  even  Republicans 
who  would  otherwise  have  supported  him,  to  balk. 
They  not  only  rejected  the  proposal  itself,  but  they 
feared  that  he,  by  making  it,  indicated  that  he  had 
lost  his  judgment  and  was  being  swept  into  the  vor 
tex  of  revolution.  Judges  and  courts  and  respect  for 
law,  like  lighthouses  on  granite  foundations,  must  be 
kept  safe  from  the  fluctuations  of  tides  and  the 
crash  of  tempests. 

The  campaign  which  followed  is  chiefly  remark- 


378  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

able  for  Roosevelt's  amazing  activity.  He  felt  that 
the  success  of  the  Progressive  Party  at  the  polls  de 
pended  upon  him  as  its  Leader.  The  desire  for  per 
sonal  success  in  any  contest  into  which  he  plunged 
would  have  been  a  great  incentive,  but  this  was  a 
cause  which  dwarfed  any  personal  considerations  of 
his.  Senator  Joseph  M.  Dixon,  of  Montana,  managed 
the  campaign;  Roosevelt  himself  gave  it  a  dynamic 
impulse  which  never  flagged.  He  went  to  the  Pacific 
Coast,  speaking  at  every  important  centre  on  the 
way,  and  returning  through  the  Southern  States  to 
New  York  City.  In  September  he  swept  through 
New  England,  and  he  was  making  a  final  tour 
through  the  Middle  West,  when,  on  October  I4th, 
just  as  he  was  leaving  his  hotel  to  make  a  speech  in 
the  Auditorium  in  Milwaukee,  a  lunatic  named  John 
Schranck  shot  him  with  a  revolver.  The  bullet  en 
tered  his  body  about  an  inch  below  the  right  nipple 
and  would  probably  have  been  fatal  but  for  an  eye 
glass-case  and  a  roll  of  manuscript  he  had  in  his 
pocket.  Before  the  assassin  could  shoot  again,  his 
hand  was  caught  and  deflected  by  the  Colonel's 
secretary.  "  Don't  hurt  the  poor  creature,"  Roose 
velt  said,  when  Schranck  was  overpowered  and 
brought  before  him.  Not  knowing  the  extent  of  his 
wound,  and  waiting  only  long  enough  to  return  to 
his  hotel  room  and  change  his  white  shirt,  as  the 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  379 

bosom  of  the  one  he  had  on  was  soaked  with  blood, 
and  disregarding  the  entreaties  of  his  companions  to 
stay  quiet,  he  went  to  the  Auditorium  and  spoke  for 
more  than  an  hour.  Only  towards  the  end  did  the 
audience  perceive  that  he  showed  signs  of  fatigue. 
This  extraordinary  performance  was  most  foolhardy, 
and  some  of  his  carping  critics  said  that,  as  usual, 
Roosevelt  wanted  to  be  theatrical.  But  there  was  no 
such  purpose  in  him.  He  felt  to  the  depths  of  his  soul 
that  neither  his  safety  nor  that  of  any  other  indi 
vidual  counted  in  comparison  with  the  triumph  of 
the  Cause  he  was  fighting  for. 

After  a  brief  examination  the  surgeons  stated  that 
he  had  better  be  removed  to  the  Mercy  Hospital  in 
Chicago.  They  put  him  on  his  special  car  and  by  an 
incredible  negligence  they  sent  him  off  to  make  the 
night  journey  without  any  surgical  attendant.  On 
reaching  the  Mercy  Hospital,  Dr.  Ryan  made  a 
further  examination  and  reported  that  there  seemed 
to  be  no  immediate  danger,  although  he  could  not 
be  sure  whether  the  Colonel  would  live  or  not. 
Roosevelt,  who  was  advertised  to  make  a  great 
speech  in  Louisville,  Kentucky,  that  evening,  sum 
moned  Senator  Beveridge  and  sent  him  off  with  the 
manuscript  of  the  address  to  take  his  place.  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  reached  Chicago  by  the  first  train  possi 
ble,  and  stayed  with  him  while  he  underwent,  impa- 


38o  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

tiently,  nearly  a  fortnight's  convalescence.  Then, 
much  sooner  than  the  surgeons  thought  wise,  al 
though  his  wound  had  healed  with  remarkable  speed, 
he  returned  to  Oyster  Bay,  and  on  October  3Oth  he 
closed  his  campaign  by  addressing  sixteen  thousand 
persons  in  the  Madison  Square  Garden.  He  spoke 
with  unwonted  calm  and  judicial  poise;  and  so  ear 
nestly  that  the  conviction  which  he  felt  carried  con 
viction  to  many  who  heard  him.  "  I  am  glad  beyond 
measure,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  one  of  the  many  who 
in  this  fight  have  stood  ready  to  spend  and  be  spent, 
pledged  to  fight,  while  life  lasts,  the  great  fight  for 
righteousness  and  for  brotherhood  and  for  the  wel 
fare  of  mankind." 

President  Taft  and  the  members  of  his  Cabinet 
took  little  or  no  active  part  in  the  campaign.  Indeed, 
the  Republicans  seemed  unable  to  arouse  enthusi 
asm.  They  relied  upon  their  past  victories  and  the 
robust  campaign  fund,  which  the  Interests  gladly 
furnished.  The  Democratic  candidate  was  Woodrow 
Wilson,  Governor  of  New  Jersey,  who  had  been  pro 
fessor  at  Princeton  University,  and  then  its  president. 
As  Governor,  he  had  commended  himself  by  fighting 
the  Machine,  and  by  advocating  radical  measures. 
As  candidate,  he  asserted  his  independence  by  de 
claring  that  "a  party  platform  is  not  a  program." 
He  spoke  effectively,  and  both  he  and  his  party 


J 

THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  381 

had  the  self-complacency  that  comes  to  persons  who 
believe  that  they  are  sure  to  win.  And  how  could 
their  victory  be  in  doubt  since  the  united  Democrats 
had  for  opponents  the  divided  Republicans?  When 
Colonel  Roosevelt  was  shot,  Governor  Wilson  mag 
nanimously  announced  that  he  would  make  no  more 
speeches.  Roosevelt  objected  to  this,  believing  that 
a  chance  accident  to  him,  personally,  ought  not  to 
stop  any  one  from  criticising  him  politically.  "What 
ever  could  with  truth  and  propriety  have  been  said 
against  me  and  my  cause  before  I  was  shot,  can,"  he 
urged,  "with  equal  truth  and  equal  propriety,  be 
said  against  me  now,  and  it  should  so  be  said;  and 
the  things  that  cannot  be  said  now  are  merely  the 
things  that  ought  not  to  have  been  said  before.  This 
is  not  a  contest  about  any  man;  it  is  a  contest  con 
cerning  principles." 

At  the  election  on  November  5th,  Wilson  was 
elected  by  6,286,000  votes  out  of  15,310,000  votes, 
thus  being  a  minority  President  by  two  million  and 
a  half  votes.  Roosevelt  received  4,126,000  and  Taft 
3,483,000  votes.  The  combined  vote  of  what  had 
been  the  Republican  Party  amounted  to  7,609,000 
votes,  or  1,323,000  more  than  those  received  by  Mr. 
Wilson.  When  it  came  to  the  Electoral  College,  the 
result  was  even  more  significant.  Wilson  had  435, 
Roosevelt  88,  and  Taft,  thanks  to  Vermont  and 


\ 


382  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Utah,  secured  8  votes.  Roosevelt  carried  Pennsyl 
vania  the  rock-bound  Republican  State,  Missouri 
which  was  usually  Democratic,  South  Dakota, 
Washington,  Michigan,  and  eleven  out  of  the  thir 
teen  votes  of  California.  These  figures,  analyzed 
calmly,  after  the  issues  and  passions  have  cooled  into 
history,  indicate  two  things.  First,  the  amazing  per 
sonal  popularity  of  Roosevelt,  who,  against  the  oppo 
sition  of  the  Republican  Machine  and  all  its  ramifi 
cations,  had  so  easily  defeated  President  Taft,  the 
candidate  of  that  Machine.  And  secondly,  it  proved 
that  Roosevelt,  and  not  Taft,  really  represented  a 
large  majority  of  what  had  been  the  Republican 
Party.  Therefore,  it  was  the  Taft  faction  which,  in 
spite  of  the  plain  evidence  given  at  the  choice  of  the 
delegates,  and  at  the  Convention  itself  —  evidence 
which  the  Machine  tried  to  ignore  and  suppress  — 
it  was  the  Taft  faction  and  not  Roosevelt  which 
split  the  Republican  Party  in  1912. 

Had  it  allowed  the  preference  of  the  majority  to 
express  itself  by  the  nomination  of  Roosevelt,  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  have  been 
elected.  For  we  must  remember  that  the  Democratic 
Platform  was  hardly  less  progressive  than  that  of 
the  Progressives  themselves.  Counting  the  Wilson 
and  the  Roosevelt  vote  together,  we  find  10,412,000 
votes  were  cast  for  Progressive  principles  against 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  383 

3,483,000  votes  for  the  reactionary  Conservatives. 
And  yet  the  gray  wolves  of  the  Republican  Party,  and 
its  Old  Guard,  and  its  Machine,  proclaimed  to  the 
country  that  its  obsolescent  doctrines  represented 
the  desires  and  the  ideals  of  the  United  States  in 
1912! 

Although  the  campaign,  as  conducted  by  the 
Republicans,  seemed  listless,  it  did  not  lack  venom. 
Being  a  family  fight  between  the  Taft  men  and  the 
Roosevelt  men,  it  had  the  bitterness  which  family 
quarrels  develop.  Mr.  Taft  and  most  of  his  Secre 
taries  had  known  the  methods  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
his  Ministers.  They  could  counter,  therefore,  charges 
of  incompetence  and  indifference  by  recalling  the 
inconsistencies,  or  worse,  of  Roosevelt's  regime. 
When  the  Progressives  charged  the  Taft  Adminis 
tration  with  being  easy  on  the  Big  Interests,  Attor 
ney-General  Wickersham  resorted  to  a  simple  sum 
in  arithmetic  in  order  to  contradict  them,  showing 
that  whereas  Roosevelt  began  forty-four  Anti-Trust 
suits,  and  concluded  only  four  important  cases  dur 
ing  his  seven  and  a  half  years  in  office,  under  Taft 
sixty-six  new  suits  were  begun  and  many  of  the  old 
ones  were  successfully  concluded.  Some  great  cases, 
like  that  of  the  Standard  Oil  and  of  the  Railroad 
Rates,  had  been  settled,  which  equaled  in  impor 
tance  any  that  Roosevelt  had  taken  up.  In  the  course 


384  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  debate  on  the  stump,  each  side  made  virulent 
accusations  against  the  other,  and  things  were  said 
which  were  not  true  then  and  have  long  since  been 
regretted  by  the  sayers.  That  happens  in  all  political 
contests. 

Roosevelt  himself,  being  the  incarnation,  if  not 
indeed  the  cause,  of  the  Progressive  Party,  had  to 
endure  an  incessant  volley  of  personal  attack.  They 
charged  him  with  inordinate  ambition.  We  heard 
how  Mr.  William  Barnes,  Jr.,  the  would-be  savior  of 
the  country,  implied  that  Roosevelt  must  be  de 
feated  in  order  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  mon 
archy  in  the  United  States.  Probably  Mr.  Barnes,  in 
his  moments  of  reflection,  admitted  to  himself  that 
he  did  not  really  mean  that,  but  many  campaign 
orators  and  editors  repeated  the  insinuation  and  be 
sought  free-born  Americans  not  to  elect  a  candidate 
who  would  assume  the  title  of  King  Theodore.  Many 
of  his  critics  could  account  for  his  leaving  the  Repub 
lican  Party  and  heading  another,  only  on  the  theory 
that  he  was  moved  by  a  desire  for  revenge.  If  he 
could  not  rule  he  would  ruin.  The  old  allegation  that 
he  must  be  crazy  was  of  course  revived. 

After  the  election,  the  Republican  Regulars,  who 
had  stubbornly  refused  to  read  the  handwriting  on 
the  wall  during  the  previous  four  years,  heaped  new 
abuse  upon  him.  They  said  that  he  had  betrayed  the 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  385 

Party.  They  said  that  he  had  shown  himself  an  in- 
grate  towards  Taft,  whose  achievements  in  the 
Presidency  awoke  his  envy.  And  more  recently, 
many  persons  who  have  loathed  the  Administration 
of  President  Wilson,  blame  Roosevelt  for  having 
brought  down  this  curse  upon  the  country. 

These  various  opinions  and  charges  seem  to  me  to 
be  mistaken;  and  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  if  I  have 
truly  divined  Theodore  Roosevelt's  character,  every 
reader  should  see  that  his  action  in  entering  the  field 
for  the  Republican  nomination  in  1912,  and  then  in 
founding  the  Progressive  Party,  was  the  perfectly 
natural  culmination  of  his  career.  Some  one  said  that 
he  went  off  at  a  tangent  in  1912.  Some  one  else  has 
said  better  that  this  tangent  was  a  straight  line  lead 
ing  back  to  1882,  when  he  sat  in  the  New  York 
Assembly.  Remember  that  the  love  of  Justice  was 
from  boyhood  his  leading  principle.  Remember  that, 
after  he  succeeded  in  having  a  law  passed  relieving 
the  miserably  poor  cigar-makers  from  the  hideous 
conditions  under  which  they  had  to  work,  a  judge 
declared  the  law  unconstitutional,  thereby  proving 
to  Roosevelt  that  the  courts,  which  should  be  the 
citadels  of  Justice,  might  and  did,  in  this  case,  care 
more  for  the  financial  interests  of  landowners  than 
for  the  health,  life,  and  soul  of  human  beings.  That 
example  of  injustice  was  branded  on  his  heart,  and 


386  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  resolved  to  combat  the  judicial  league  with  in 
humanity,  wherever  he  met  it.  So  Abraham  Lincoln, 
when,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  he  first  saw  a  slave 
auction  in  New  Orleans,  said,  in  indignant  horror, 
to  his  companion,  John  Hanks:  "If  I  ever  get  a 
chance  to  hit  that  thing  [meaning  slavery]  I  '11  hit  it 
hard."  Exactly  thirty  years  later,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
as  President,  was  hitting  that  thing  —  slavery  —  so 
hard  that  it  perished.  Roosevelt's  experience  as 
Assemblyman,  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  as 
Police  Commissioner,  as  Governor,  and  as  President, 
had  confirmed  his  belief  that  the  decisions  of  the 
courts  often  stood  between  the  People  and  Justice. 
Especially  in  his  war  on  the  Interests  was  he  an 
gered  at  finding  corporate  abuses,  and  even  criminal 
methods,  comfortably  protected  by  an  upholstery 
of  favoring  laws.  With  that  tact  and  willingness  to 
compromise  on  non-essentials  in  order  to  gain  his 
essential  object,  which  mark  him  as  a  statesman,  he 
used  the  Republican  Party,  naturally  the  party  of 
the  plutocrats  who  controlled  the  Interests,  just  as 
long  as  he  could.  Then,  when  the  Republican  Ma 
chine  rose  against  him,  he  quitted  it  and  founded 
the  Progressive  Party,  to  be  the  instrument  for 
carrying  on  and  completing  the  great  reforms  he  had 
at  heart.  Here  was  no  desertion,  no  betrayal;  here 
was,  first  of  all,  common  sense;  if  the  road  no  longer 


THE  TWO  CONVENTIONS  387 

leads  towards  your  goal,  you  leave  it  and  take  an 
other.  No  one  believed  more  sincerely  than  Roose 
velt  did,  in  fealty  to  party.  In  1884  ne  would  not 
bolt,  because  he  hoped  that  the  good  which  the 
Republican  principles  would  accomplish  would  more 
than  offset  the  harm  which  the  nomination  of  Elaine 
would  inflict.  But  in  1912,  the  Republicans  cynically 
rejected  his  cause  which  he  had  tried  to  make  the 
Republican  cause,  and  then,  as  in  1884,  he  held  that 
the  cause  was  more  important  than  the  individual, 
and  he  followed  this  idea  loyally,  lead  where  it 
might. 

In  trying  thus  to  state  Roosevelt's  position  fairly, 
I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  I  should  agree  with  his 
conclusions  in  regard  to  the  Recall  of  the  Judicial 
Decisions;  and  the  experiments  which  have  already 
been  made  with  the  Referendum  and  Initiative  and 
Direct  Primaries  are  so  unsatisfactory  that  Roose 
velt  himself  would  probably  have  recognized  that 
the  doubts,  which  many  of  us  felt  when  he  first  pro 
posed  those  measures,  have  been  justified.  But  I 
wish  to  emphasize  my  admiration  for  the  large  con 
sistency  of  his  career,  and  my  conviction  that,  with 
out  his  crowning  action  in  1912,  he  would  have  failed 
to  be  the  moral  force  which  he  was.  If  ambition,  if 
envy,  if  a  selfish  desire  to  rule,  had  been  the  motives 
which  guided  him,  he  would  have  lain  low  in  1912; 


388  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

for  all  his  friends  and  the  managers  of  the  Repub 
lican  Party  assured  him  that  if  he  would  stand  aside 
then,  he  would  be  unanimously  nominated  by  the 
Republicans  in  1916.  But  he  could  not  be  tempted. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL 

THEY  will  be  throwing  rotten  apples  at  me 
soon,"  Theodore  had  said  to  his  sister,  on  the 
day  when  New  York  went  frantic  in  placing  him 
among  the  gods.  His  treatment,  after  he  championed 
Progressivism,  showed  him  to  be  clairvoyant.  Not 
only  did  his  political  opponents  belabor  him  —  that 
was  quite  natural  —  but  his  friends,  having  failed  to 
persuade  him  not  to  take  the  fatal  leap,  let  him  see 
plainly  that,  while  he  still  had  their  affection,  they 
had  lost  their  respect  for  his  judgment.  He  himself 
bore  the  defeat  of  1912  with  the  same  valiant  cheer 
fulness  with  which  he  took  every  disappointment 
and  thwarting.  But  he  was  not  stolid,  much  less  in 
different.  "It  is  all  very  well  to  talk  with  the  Cru 
sading  spirit,"  he  said  after  the  election,  "and  of  the 
duty  to  spend  and  be  spent;  and  I  feel  it  absolutely 
as  regards  myself;  but  I  hate  to  see  my  Crusading 
lieutenants  suffer  for  the  cause."  He  was  thinking 
of  the  eager  young  men,  including  some  of  his  kins 
men,  who  had  gone  into  the  campaign  because  they 
believed  in  him. 

His  close  friends  did  not  follow  him,  but  they  still 


390  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

loved  him.  And  it  was  a  sign  of  his  open-mindedness 
that  he  would  listen  to  their  opinions  and  even  con 
sult  them,  although  he  knew  that  they  entirely  re 
jected  his  Progressivism.  General  Luke  E.  Wright, 
who  remained  a  devoted  friend  but  did  not  become 
a  Progressive,  used  to  explain  what  the  others  called 
the  Colonel's  aberration,  as  being  really  a  very  subtle 
piece  of  wisdom.  Experienced  ranchmen,  he  would 
say,  when  their  herds  stampede  in  a  sudden  alarm, 
spur  their  horses  through  the  rushing  cattle,  fire 
their  revolvers  into  the  air,  and  gradually,  by  mak 
ing  the  herds  suppose  that  men  and  beasts  are  all 
together  in  their  wild  dash,  work  their  way  to  the 
front.  Then  they  cleverly  make  the  leaders  swing 
round,  and  after  a  long  stampede  the  herd  comes 
panting  back  to  the  place  it  started  from.  This, 
General  Wright  said,  is  what  Roosevelt  was  doing 
with  the  multitudes  of  Radicals  who  seemed  to  be 
headed  for  perdition. 

Just  as  he  had  absented  himself  in  Africa  for  a 
year,  after  retiring  from  the  Presidency,  so  Roose 
velt  decided  to  make  one  more  trip  for  hunting  and 
exploration.  As  he  could  not  go  to  the  North  Pole, 
he  said,  because  that  would  be  poaching  on  Peary's 
field,  he  selected  South  America.  He  had  long 
wished  to  visit  the  Southern  Continent,  and  in  vita- 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  391 

tions  to  speak  at  Rio  Janeiro  and  at  Buenos  Aires 
gave  him  an  excuse  for  setting  out.  As  before,  he 
started  with  the  distinct  purpose  of  collecting  animal 
and  botanical  specimens;  this  time  for  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York,  which 
provided  two  trained  naturalists  to  accompany  him. 
His  son  Kermit,  toughened  by  the  previous  adven 
ture,  went  also. 

Having  paid  his  visits  and  seen  the  civilized  parts 
of  Brazil,  Uruguay,  and  Argentina,  he  ascended  the 
Paraguay  River  and  then  struck  across  the  plateau 
which  divides  its  watershed  from  that  of  the  tribu 
taries  of  the  Amazon;  for  he  proposed  to  make  his 
way  through  an  unexplored  region  in  Central  Brazil 
and  reach  the  outposts  of  civilization  on  the  Great 
River.  Dr.  Osborn  had  dissuaded  him  from  going 
through  a  tract  where  the  climate  was  known  to  be 
most  pernicious.  The  Brazilian  Government  had 
informed  him  that,  by  the  route  he  had  chosen,  he 
would  meet  a  large  river  —  the  Rio  da  Duvido,  the 
River  of  Doubt  —  by  which  he  could  descend  to  the 
Amazon.  Roosevelt's  account  of  this  exploration, 
given  in  his  "The  Brazilian  Wilderness,"  belongs 
among  the  masterpieces  of  explorers'  records. 

There  were  some  twenty  persons,  including  a 
dozen  or  fifteen  native  rowers  and  pack-bearers,  in 
his  party.  They  had  canoes  and  dugouts,  supplies  of 


392  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

food  for  about  forty  days,  and  a  carefully  chosen 
outfit.  With  high  hopes  they  put  their  craft  into  the 
water  and  moved  downstream.  But  on  the  fourth 
day  they  found  rapids  ahead,  and  from  that  time  on 
they  were  constantly  obliged  to  land  and  carry  their 
dugouts  and  stores  round  a  cataract.  The  peril  of 
being  swept  over  the  falls  was  always  imminent,  and 
as  the  trail  which  constituted  their  portages  had  to 
be  cut  through  the  matted  forest,  their  labors  were 
increased.  In  the  first  eleven  days,  they  progressed 
only  sixty  miles.  No  one  knew  the  distance  they 
would  have  to  traverse  nor  how  long  the  river  would 
be  broken  by  falls  and  cataracts  before  it  came  down 
into  the  plain  of  the  Amazon.  Some  of  their  canoes 
were  smashed  on  the  rocks;  two  of  the  natives  were 
drowned.  They  watched  their  provisions  shrink.  Con 
trary  to  their  expectations,  the  forest  had  almost 
no  animals.  If  they  could  shoot  a  monkey  or  a  mon 
ster  lizard,  they  rejoiced  at  having  a  little  fresh  meat. 
Tropical  insects  —  of  which  the  pium  seems  to 
have  been  the  worst  —  bit  them  day  and  night  and 
caused  inflammation  and  even  infection.  Man-eating 
fish  lived  in  the  river,  making  it  dangerous  for  the 
men  when  they  tried  to  cool  their  inflamed  bodies 
by  a  swim.  Most  of  the  party  had  malaria,  and  could 
be  kept  going  only  by  large  doses  of  quinine.  Roose 
velt,  while  in  the  water,  wounded  his.  leg  on  a  rock, 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  393 

inflammation  set  in,  and  prevented  him  from  walk 
ing,  so  that  he  had  to  be  carried  across  the  portages. 

The  physical  strength  of  the  party,  sapped  by 
sickness  and  fatigue,  was  visibly  waning.  Still  the 
cataracts  continued  to  impede  their  progress  and 
to  add  terribly  to  their  toil.  The  supply  of  food  had 
shrunk  so  much  that  the  rations  were  restricted  and 
amounted  to  little  more  than  enough  to  keep  the 
men  able  to  go  forward  slowly.  Then  fever  attacked 
Roosevelt,  and  they  had  to  wait  for  a  few  days  be 
cause  he  was  too  weak  to  be  moved.  He  besought 
them  to  leave  him  and  hurry  along  to  safety,  because 
every  day  they  delayed  consumed  their  diminishing 
store  of  food,  and  they  might  all  die  of  starvation. 
They  refused  to  leave  him,  however,  and  he  secretly 
determined  to  shoot  himself  unless  a  change  for  the 
better  in  his  condition  came  soon.  It  came;  they 
moved  forward.  At  last,  they  left  the  rapids  behind 
them  and  could  drift  and  paddle  on  the  unobstructed 
river.  Roosevelt  lay  in  the  bottom  of  a  dugout, 
shaded  by  a  bit  of  canvas  put  up  over  his  head,  and 
too  weak  from  sickness,  he  told  me,  even  to  splash 
water  on  his  face,  for  he  was  almost  fainting  from 
the  muggy  heat  and  the  tropical  sunshine. 

On  April  I5th,  forty-eight  days  after  they  began 
their  voyage  on  the  River  of  Doubt,  they  saw  a  peas 
ant,  a  rubber-gatherer,  the  first  human  being  they 


394  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

had  met.  Thenceforward  they  journeyed  without 
incident.  The  River  of  Doubt  flowed  into  the  larger 
river  Madeira  where  they  found  a  steamer  which 
took  them  to  Manaos  on  the  Amazon.  A  regular  line 
of  steamers  connects  Manaos  with  New  York,  where 
Roosevelt  and  Kermit  and  Cherrie,  one  of  the  natur 
alists,  landed  on  May  19,  1914.  During  the  home 
ward  voyage  Roosevelt  slowly  recovered  his  strength, 
but  he  had  never  again  the  iron  physique  with  which 
he  had  embarked  the  year  before.  His  friends  had 
urged  him  not  to  go,  warning  him  that  a  man  of  fifty- 
four  was  already  too  old  to  waste  his  reserve  force 
on  unnecessary  enterprises.  But  his  love  of  adven 
ture,  his  passion  for  testing  his  endurance  and  pluck 
by  facing  the  grimmest  dangers,  and  his  wish  to  keep 
out  of  American  political  turmoil  for  a  time,  pre 
vailed  against  wiser  counsel.  The  Brazilian  Wilder 
ness  stole  away  ten  years  of  his  life. 

I  do  not  know  whether  later,  when  he  found  him 
self  checked  by  recurrent  illness,  he  regretted  having 
chosen  to  encounter  that  ordeal  in  Brazil.  He  was  a 
man  who  wasted  no  time  over  regrets.  The  past  for 
him  was  done.  The  material  out  of  which  he  wove 
his  life  was  the  present  or  the  future.  Days  gone 
were  as  water  that  has  flowed  under  the  mill.  Acting 
always  from  what  he  regarded  as  the  best  motives 
of  the  present,  he  faced  with  equal  heart  whatever 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  395 

result  they  brought.  So  when  he  found  on  his  return 
home  that  some  geographers  and  South  American 
explorers  laughed  at  his  story  of  the  River  of  Doubt, 
he  laughed,  too,  at  their  incredulity,  and  presently 
the  Brazilian  Government,  having  established  the 
truth  of  his  exploration  and  named  the  river  after 
him,  Rio  Teodoro,  his  laughter  prevailed.  He  took 
real  satisfaction  in  having  placed  on  the  map  of  Cen 
tral  Brazil  a  river  six  hundred  miles  long. 

New  York  made  no  festival  for  him  on  this  second 
home-coming.  The  city  and  the  country  welcomed 
him,  but  not  effusively.  The  American  people,  how 
ever,  felt  a  void  without  Roosevelt.  Whether  they 
always  agreed  with  him  or  not,  they  found  him  per 
petually  interesting,  and  during  the  ten  or  eleven 
weeks  when  he  went  into  the  Brazilian  silence  and 
they  did  not  know  whether  he  was  alive  or  dead, 
they  learned  how  much  his  presence  and  his  ready 
speech  had  meant  to  them.  And  so  they  rejoiced  to 
know  that  he  was  safe  and  at  home  again  at  Saga 
more  Hill. 

Roosevelt  insisted,  imprudently,  on  accompany 
ing  his  son  Kermit  to  Madrid,  where  he  was  to  marry 
the  daughter  of  the  American  Minister.  He  made 
the  trip  to  Spain  and  back,  as  quickly  as  possible, 
and  then  he  turned  to  politics.  That  year,  Congress 
men  and  several  Governors  were  to  be  elected,  and 


396  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  into  the  cam 
paign.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  like  the  consummate 
actor  who,  in  spite  of  his  protestations,  can  never 
bid  farewell  to  the  stage.  And  now  a  peculiar  obliga 
tion  moved  him.  He  must  help  the  friends  who  had 
followed  him  eagerly  into  the  conflict  of  1912,  and, 
in  helping  them,  he  must  save  the  Progressive  princi 
ples  and  drive  them  home  with  still  greater  cogency. 
He  delivered  a  remarkable  address  at  Pittsburgh; 
he  toured  New  York  State  in  an  automobile;  he 
spoke  to  multitudes  in  Pennsylvania  from -the  back 
platform  of  a  special  train;  he  visited  Louisiana  and 
several  other  States.  But  the  November  elections  dis 
appointed  him.  The  Progressive  Party,  if  not  dead, 
had  ceased  to  be  a  real  power  in  politics;  but  Pro- 
gressivism,  as  an  influence  and  an  ideal,  was  surviv 
ing  under  other  forms. 

Probably  the  chief  cause  for  this  wane  was  the 
putting  into  operation,  by  President  Wilson  and  the 
triumphant  Democrats,  of  many  of  the  Progres 
sive  suggestions  which  the  Democratic  Platform  had 
also  contained.  The  psychological  effect  of  success  in 
politics  is  always  important  and  this  accounted  for 
the  cooling  of  the  zeal  of  a  certain  number  of  enthu 
siasts  who  had  vociferously  supported  Roosevelt  in 
1912.  The  falling-off  in  the  vote  measured  further 
the  potency  of  Roosevelt's  personal  magnetism; 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  397 

thousands  voted  for  him  who  would  not  vote  for 
other  candidates  professing  his  principles.  Finally, 
other  issues — the  imbroglio  with  Mexico,  for  in 
stance  —  were  looming  up,  and  exciting  a  different 
interest  among  the  American  people. 

Before  we  discuss  the  greatest  issue  of  all,  in  which 
Theodore  Roosevelt's  career  as  a  patriot  culminated, 
we  must  recall  two  or  three  events  which  absorbed 
him  at  the  time  and  furnished  evidence  of  vital 
import  to  those  who  would  appraise  his  character 
fairly. 

During  the  campaign  of  1912,  his  enemies  resorted 
to  all  sorts  of  slanders,  calumnies,  lies,  ignoble  al 
ways,  and  often  indecent,  to  blacken  him.  On  Oc 
tober  1 2th,  the  Iron  Ore,  a  trade  paper  edited  by 
George  A.  Newett  at  Ishpeming,  Michigan,  pub- 
ished  this  accusation:  "  Roosevelt  lies  and  curses  in  a 
most  disgusting  way;  he  gets  drunk  too,  and  that  not 
infrequently,  and  all  of  his  intimates  know  about  it." 
When  he  was  President,  Roosevelt  had  appointed 
Newett  as  postmaster,  but  Newett  stayed  by  the 
Republican  Party,  and  did  not  scruple  to  serve  it, 
as  he  supposed,  in  this  way.  The  charge  of  drunken 
ness  spread  so  far  and,  as  usual,  so  many  persons  said 
that  where  there  is  much  smoke  there  must  be  some 
fire,  that  Roosevelt  determined  to  crush  that  lie  once 
for  all.  He  would  not  have  it  stand  unchallenged,  to 


398  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

shame  his  children  after  he  was  dead,  or  to  furnish 
food  for  the  maggots  which  feed  on  the  reputations 
of  great  men.  So  he  brought  suit  against  Newett. 
His  counsel,  James  H.  Pound,  assembled  nearly  two- 
score  witnesses,  who  had  known  Roosevelt  since  he 
left  College,  men  who  had  visited  him,  had  hunted 
with  him,  had  served  with  him  in  the  Spanish  War, 
had  been  his  Cabinet  Ministers,  journalists  who  had 
followed  him  on  his  campaigning  tours,  detectives, 
and  his  personal  body-servant;  General  Leonard 
Wood,  and  Jacob  Riis,  and  Dr.  Alexander  Lambert, 
who  had  been  his  family  physician  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  This  cloud  of  witnesses  all  testified  unan 
imously  that  they  had  never  seen  him  drink  anything 
stronger  than  wine,  except  as  a  medicine;  that  he 
took  very  little  wine,  and  that  they  had  never  seen 
him  drunk.  They  also  declared  that  he  was  not  a 
curser  or  blasphemer. 

After  listening  to  this  mass  of  evidence  for  a  week, 
Newett  begged  to  withdraw  his  charge  and  to  apolo 
gize,  and  he  confessed  that  he  had  nothing  but  hear 
say  on  which  to  base  his  slanders.  Then  Roosevelt 
addressed  the  court  and  asked  it  not  to  impose 
damages  upon  the  defendant,  as  he  had  not  prose 
cuted  the  libeler  with  the  intention  of  getting  satis 
faction  in  money.  He  wrote  one  of  his  sisters  from 
Marquette,  where  the  trial  was  held:  "I  deemed  it 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  399 

best  not  to  demand  money  damages;  the  man  is  a 
country  editor,  and  while  I  thoroly1  depise  him,  I 
do  not  care  to  seem  to  persecute  him."  (May  31, 


Roosevelt  had  to  undergo  one  other  trial,  this 
time  as  defendant.  The  managers  of  the  Republican 
Party  and  the  Interests  behind  them,  not  content 
with  blocking  his  way  to  the  nomination  in  1912, 
wished  utterly  to  destroy  him  as  a  political  factor; 
for  they  still  dreaded  that,  as  a  Progressive,  he  might 
have  a  triumphant  resurrection  and  recapture  the 
confidence  of  the  American  people.  To  accomplish 
their  purpose  they  wished  to  discredit  him  as  a  re 
form  politician,  and  as  a  leader  in  civic  and  social 
welfare. 

Roosevelt  himself  gave  the  occasion  for  their  on 
slaught  upon  him.  In  supporting  Harvey  D.  Hinman, 
the  Progressive  candidate  for  the  Governor  of  New 
York  in  1914,  he  declared  that  William  Barnes,  Jr., 
who  managed  the  Republican  Machine  politics  in 
that  State,  had  a  bi-partisan  alliance  with  the  Dem 
ocratic  Machine  in  the  interest  of  crooked  politics 
and  crooked  business.  Mr.  Barnes,  in  whose  ears  the 
word  "  Boss  "  sounded  obnoxious  as  applied  to  him 
self,  brought  suit  for  libel,  and  it  came  to  trial  at 

1  I  copy  "thoroly,  "as  he  wrote  it,  as  a  reminder  that  Roosevelt 
practiced  the  spelling  reform  which  he  advocated. 


400  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Syracuse  on  April  19,  1915.  Mr.  Barnes's  counsel, 
Mr.  Ivins,  peered  into  every  item  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  political  career  with  a  microscope.  Mr.  Barnes 
had,  of  course,  all  the  facts,  all  the  traditions  that 
his  long  experience  at  Albany  could  give  him.  And 
as  he  dated  back  to  Boss  Platt  's  time,  he  must  have 
heard,  at  first  hand  from  the  Senator,  his  relations 
with  Roosevelt  as  Governor.  But  the  most  search 
ing  examination  by  Mr.  Barnes  brought  him  no 
evidence,  and  cross-examination,  pursued  for  many 
days,  brought  him  no  more.  When  it  became  Roose 
velt's  turn  to  reply,  he  showed  how  the  Albany  Eve 
ning  Journal,  Mr.  Barnes's  organ,  had  profited  by 
illegal  political  advertising.  He  proved  the  existence 
of  the  bi-partisan  alliance  with  the  Democratic  Ma 
chine,  and  showed  its  effects  on  legislation  and  elec 
tions.  After  deliberating  two  days,  the  jury  brought 
in  a  verdict  in  favor  of  Roosevelt. 

The  trial,  which  had  lasted  two  months,  and  cost 
Roosevelt  $52,000  (so  expensive  is  it  for  an  honest 
man  to  defend  his  honesty  against  hostile  politi 
cians!)  decided  two  things:  first,  that  Mr.  Barnes 
was  a  Boss,  and  had  used  crooked  methods;  and 
next,  that  Theodore  Roosevelt,  under  the  most  in 
tense  scrutiny  which  his  enemies  could  employ, 
was  freed  from  any  suspicion  of  dishonest  political 
methods  or  acts.  As  William  M.  Ivins,  attorney  for 


THE  BRAZILIAN  ORDEAL  401 

Mr.  Barnes,  left  the  New  York  Constitutional  Con 
vention  to  try  the  case  at  Syracuse,  he  said  with  un 
concealed  and  alluring  self-satisfaction  to  Mr.  Root: 
"I  am  going  to  nail  Roosevelt's  hide  to  the  barn 
door."  Mr.  Root  replied:  "Be  sure  it  is  Roosevelt's 
and  not  some  other  hide  that  is  nailed  there." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

PROMETHEUS  BOUND 

THE  event  which  put  Roosevelt's  patriotism 
to  the  final  test,  and,  as  it  proved,  evoked  all 
his  great  qualities  in  a  last  display,  was  the  out 
break  of  the  Atrocious  World  War  in  August,  1914. 
By  the  most  brutal  assault  in  modern  times,  Ger 
many,  and  her  lackey  ally,  Austria,  without  notice, 
overran  Belgium  and  Northeastern  France,  and 
devastated  Serbia.  The  other  countries,  especially 
the  United  States,  were  too  startled  at  first  to  un 
derstand  either  the  magnitude  or  the  possible  im 
plications  of  this  war.  On  August  i8th,  President 
Wilson  issued  the  first  of  his  many  variegated  mes 
sages,  in  which  he  gave  this  warning:  "We  must  be 
impartial  in  thought  as  well  as  in  action,  must  put 
a  curb  upon  our  sentiments  as  well  as  upon  every 
transaction  that  might  be  construed  as  a  preference 
of  one  party  to  the  struggle  before  another."  He 
added  that  his  first  thought  was  of  America. 

Any  one  who  analyzed  his  message  carefully  must 
have  wondered  how  it  was  possible,  in  the  greatest 
moral  issue  which  had  ever  been  thrust  before  the 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  403 

world's  judgment,  to  remain  impartial  "even  in 
thought"  between  good  and  evil.  Perhaps  it  was 
right,  though  hardly  necessary,  to  impress  upon 
Americans  that  they  must  look  after  their  own  in 
terests  first.  Would  it  not  have  been  more  seemly, 
however,  especially  for  President  Wilson,  who  on 
the  previous  Fourth  of  July  had  uttered  his  sancti 
monious  tribute  to  the  superiority  in  virtue  of  the 
United  States  to  all  other  nations,  to  urge  his  coun 
trymen  to  put  some  of  this  virtue  into  practice  at 
that  crisis? 

But  the  masses  did  not  reason.  They  used  his  ad 
monition  to  remain  neutral  "even  in  thought"  to 
justify  them  in  not  having  any  great  anxiety  as  to 
who  was  right  and  who  wrong;  and  they  interpreted 
his  concern  for  "America  first"  as  authorizing  them 
to  go  about  their  affairs  and  profit  as  much  as  they 
could  in  the  warlike  conditions.  Some  of  us,  indeed, 
took  an  opposite  view.  We  saw  that  the  conflict,  if 
fought  to  a  finish,  would  decide  whether  Democracy 
or  Despotism  should  rule  the  earth.  We  felt  that  the 
United  States,  the  vastest,  strongest,  and  most  popu 
lous  Republic  in  the  world,  pledged  to  uphold  Democ 
racy,  should  throw  itself  at  once  on  the  side  of  the 
European  nations  which  were  struggling,  against 
great  odds,  to  save  Democracy  from  the  most  atro 
cious  of  despots.  Inevitably,  we  were  regarded  as 


404  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

incorrigible  idealists  whose  suggestions  ran  counter 
to  etiquette  and  were,  after  all,  crazy. 

For  several  years,  Roosevelt  had  been  a  contrib 
uting  editor  of  the  Outlook,  and  although  his  first 
instinct,  when  the  Germans  ravished  Belgium,  was 
to  protest  and  then,  if  necessary,  to  follow  up  our 
protest  by  a  show  of  force,  he  wrote  in  the  Outlook 
an  approval  of  our  taking  immediately  a  neutral 
attitude.  Still,  he  did  not  let  this  preclude  stern  ac 
tion  later.  " Neutrality,"  he  said,  "may  be  of  prime 
necessity  to  maintain  peace  .  .  .  but  we  pay  the  pen 
alty  of  this  action  on  behalf  of  peace  for  ourselves, 
and  possibly  for  others  in  the  future,  by  forfeiting 
our  right  to  do  anything  on  behalf  of  peace  for  the 
Belgians  at  present."  Three  years  afterwards  these 
sentences  of  his  were  unearthed  by  his  enemies  and 
flung  against  him;  but  his  dominant  purpose,  from 
the  start,  was  too  well  known  for  any  one  to  accuse 
him  of  inconsistency.  He  assumed,  when  President 
Wilson  issued  his  impartial  "even  in  thought"  mes 
sage,  that  the  President  must  have  some  secret  dip 
lomatic  information  which  would  vindicate  it. 

As  the  months  went  on,  however,  it  became  clear 

to  him  that  Mr.  Wilson  was  pursuing  towards  the 

European  War  the  same  policy  of  contradictions, 

—  of  brief  paroxysms  of  boldness,  followed  by  long 

periods  of  lassitude,  which  had  marked  his  conduct 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  405 

of  our  relations  towards  the  Mexican  bandits.  He 
saw  only  too  w^ell,  also,  into  what  ignoble  depths 
this  policy  led  us.  Magnificent  France,  throttled 
Belgium,  England  willing  but  not  yet  ready,  dev 
astated  Serbia,  looked  to  us  for  sympathy  and  help, 
and  all  the  sympathy  they  got  came  from  private 
persons  in  America,  and  of  help  there  was  none. 
Meanwhile,  the  Germans  undermined  and  gan 
grened  the  American  people.  Every  ship  brought 
over  their  slyest  and  most  unscrupulous  propagan 
dists,  who  cooperated  with  the  despicable  German 
professors  and  other  agents  already  planted  here, 
and  opened  the  sewers  of  their  doctrines.  Their  spies 
began  to  go  up  and  down  the  land,  without  check. 
Count  Bernstorff,  the  German  Ambassador,  as 
sumed  to  play  with  the  Administration  at  Washing 
ton  as  a  cat  might  play  with  half  a  score  of  mice, 
feeling  sure  that  he  could  devour  them  when  he  chose. 
A  European  gentleman,  who  came  from  a  neutral 
country,  and  called  on  Bernstorff  in  April,  1915,  told 
me  that  when  he  asked  the  Ambassador  how  he  got 
on  with  the  United  States,  he  replied:  "Very  well, 
indeed ;  we  pay  no  attention  to  thefGov^mment,  but 
go  ahead  and  do  what  we  please."  Within  a  fort 
night  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  showed  that 
Bernstorff  had  not  boasted  idly. 

Roosevelt  understood  the  harm  which  the  Ger- 


406  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

man  conspiracy  was  doing  among  our  people,  not 
only  by  polluting  their  ideals,  but  actually  strength 
ening  the  coils  which  the  propagandists  had  been 
winding,  to  strangle  at  the  favorable  moment  Ameri 
can  independence  itself.  We  discovered  then  that  the 
process  of  Germanization  had  been  going  on  secretly 
during  twenty  years.  Since  England  was  the  chief 
enemy  in  the  way  of  German  world  domination,  the 
German- Americans  laid  themselves  out  to  render  the 
English  odious  here.  And  they  worked  to  such  good 
purpose  that  the  legal  officers  of  the  Administration 
admonished  the  American  people  that  the  English, 
in  holding  up  merchant  vessels  laden  with  cargoes 
for  Germany,  committed  breaches  against  interna 
tional  law  which  were  quite  as  heinous  as  the  sinking 
by  German  submarines  of  ships  laden  with  American 
non-combatants.  They  magnified  the  loss  of  a  cargo 
of  perishable  food  and  set  it  against  the  ferocious 
destruction  of  neutral  human  beings.  Senator  Lodge, 
however,  expressed  the  clear  thought  and  right 
feeling  of  Americans  when  he  said  that  we  were  more 
moved  by  the  thought  of  the  corpse  of  an  innocent 
victim  of  the  Hun  submarines  than  by  that  of  a 
bale  of  cotton. 

These  enormities,  these  sins  of  omission  and  com 
mission,  of  which  Roosevelt  declared  our  Govern 
ment  guilty,  amazed  and  exasperated  him,  and  from 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  407 

the  beginning  of  1915  onward,  he  set  himself  three 
tasks.  He  wished  to  expose  and  circumvent  German 
machinations  over  here.  Next,  he  deemed  it  a  press 
ing  duty  to  rouse  our  country  to  the  recognition 
that  we  must  prepare  at  once  for  war.  He  saw,  as 
every  other  sensible  person  saw,  that  as  the  con 
flict  grew  more  terrible  in  Europe  and  spread  into 
Asia  and  Africa,  we  should  be  drawn  into  it,  and 
that  therefore  we  must  make  ready.  He  seconded 
the  plan  of  General  Leonard  Wood  to  organize  a 
camp  for  volunteers  at  Plattsburg  and  other  places; 
and  what  that  plan  accomplished  in  fitting  Amer 
ican  soldiers  to  meet  and  vanquish  the  Kaiser  *s 
best  troops,  has  since  been  proved.  President  Wilson, 
however,  would  not  officially  countenance  any  prep 
aration  which,  so  far  as  the  public  was  allowed  to 
know  his  reasons,  might  be  taken  by  the  Germans 
as  an  unfriendly  act.  Finally,  Roosevelt  labored 
unceasingly  to  revive  and  make  militant  the  ideals 
of  true  Americanism. 

That  the  Germans  accurately  gauged  that  Presi 
dent  Wilson  would  not  sanction  any  downright  vig 
orous  action  against  them,  was  sufficiently  proved 
on  May  7,  1915,  when  German  submarines  torpe 
doed  and  sank,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the 
British  passenger  steamship  Lusitania,  eastward 
bound,  a  few  miles  south  of  the  Point  of  Kinsale  on 


4o8  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  Irish  coast.  With  her  went  down  nearly  thirteen 
hundred  persons,  all  of  them  non-belligerents  and 
more  than  one  hundred  of  them  American  men, 
women,  and  children.  This  atrocious  crime  the  Ger 
mans  committed  out  of  their  stupid  miscalculation 
of  the  motives  which  govern  non- German  peoples. 
They  thought  that  the  British  and  Americans  would 
be  so  terrorized  that  they  would  no  longer  dare  to 
cross  the  ocean.  The  effect  was,  of  course,  just  the 
opposite.  A  cry  of  horror  swept  over  the  civilized 
world,  and  swiftly  upon  it  came  a  great  demand  for 
punishment  and  retribution. 

Then  was  the  moment  for  President  Wilson  to 
break  off  diplomatic  relations  with  Germany.  The 
very  day  after  the  waters  of  the  British  Channel  had 
closed  over  the  innocent  victims,  President  Wilson 
made  an  address  in  which  he  announced  that  "a 
nation  may  be  too  proud  to  fight."  The  country 
gasped  for  breath  when  it  read  those  words,  which 
seemed  to  be  the  official  statement  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  that  foreign  nations  might  out 
rage,  insult,  and  degrade  this  nation  with  impunity, 
because,  as  the  rabbit  retires  into  its  hole,  so  we 
would  burrow  deep  into  our  pride  and  show  neither 
resentment  nor  sense  of  honor.  As  soon  as  possible, 
word  came  from  the  White  House  that,  as  the  Presi 
dent 's  speech  had  been  written  before  the  sinking 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  409 

of  the  Lusitania,  his  remarks  had  no  bearing  on  that 
atrocity.  Pride  is  a  wonderful  cloak  for  cowards, 
but  it  never  saves  them.  Perhaps  the  most  amazing 
piece  of  impudence  in  Germany's  long  list  was  the 
formal  visit  described  by  the  newspapers  which  the 
German  Ambassador,  Bernstorff,  paid  to  Mr.  Bryan, 
the  Secretary  of  State,  to  present  to  our  Govern 
ment  the  formal  condolence  of  Germany  and  him 
self  at  this  painful  happening.  Bernstorff,  we  know 
now,  planned  the  sinking  and  gave  the  German 
Government  notice  by  wireless  just  where  the  sub 
marines  could  best  destroy  the  Lusitania ,  on  that 
Friday  afternoon. 

Ten  days  later,  Mr.  Wilson  sent  a  formal  protest 
to  Germany  in  which  he  recalled  "the  humane  and 
enlightened  attitude  hitherto  assumed  by  the  Im 
perial  German  Government  in  matters  of  interna 
tional  right,  and  particularly  in  regard  to  the  free 
dom  of  the  seas  " ;  and  he  professed  to  have  "learned 
to  recognize  the  German  views  and  the  German  in 
fluence  in  the  field  of  international  obligation  as 
always  engaged  upon  the  side  of  justice  and  hu 
manity."  If  Mr.  Bryan  had  written  this,  no  one 
would  have  been  astonished,  because  Mr.  Bryan 
made  no  pretense  of  knowing  even  the  rudimentary 
facts  of  history;  but  that  President  Wilson,  by  pro 
fession  a  historian,  should  laud,  as  being  always 


410  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

engaged  in  justice  and  humanity,  the  nation  which, 
under  Frederick  the  Great,  had  stolen  Silesia  and 
dismembered  Poland,  and  which,  in  his  own  lifetime, 
had  garroted  Denmark,  had  forced  a  wicked  war  on 
Austria,  had  trapped  France  by  lies  into  another 
war  and  robbed  her  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  had  only 
recently  wiped  its  hands,  dripping  with  blood  drawn 
from  the  Chinese,  was  amazing! 

Small  wonder  if  after  that,  the  German  hyphen 
ates  lifted  up  their  heads  arrogantly  in  this  country, 
or  that  the  Kaiser  in  Germany  believed  that  the 
United  States  was  a  mere  jelly-fish  nation  which 
would  tolerate  any  enormity  he  might  concoct.  This 
was  the  actual  comfort  President  Wilson's  message 
gave  Germany.  The  negative  result  was  felt  among 
the  Allied  nations  which,  struggling  against  the  Ger 
man  Monster  like  Laocoon  in  the  coils  of  the  Python, 
took  Mr.  Wilson's  praise  of  Germany's  imaginary 
love  of  justice  and  humanity  as  a  death-warrant  for 
themselves.  They  could  not  believe  that  he  who  wrote 
such  words,  or  the  American  people  who  swallowed 
them,  could  ever  be  roused  to  give  succor  to  the 
Allies  in  their  desperation. 

Three  years  later  I  asked  Roosevelt  what  he  would 
have  done,  if  he  had  been  President  in  May,  1915. 
He  said,  in  substance,  that,  as  soon  as  he  had  read 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  411 

in  the  New  York  newspaper  1  the  advertisement 
which  Bernstorff  had  inserted  warning  all  Ameri 
can  citizens  from  taking  passage  on  the  Lusitania, 
he  would  have  sent  for  Bernstorff  and  asked  him 
whether  the  advertisement  was  officially  acknowl 
edged  by  him.  Even  Bernstorff,  arch-liar  that  he 
was,  could  not  have  denied  it.  "I  should  then  have 
sent  to  the  Department  of  State  to  prepare  his 
passports;  I  should  have  handed  them  to  him  and 
said,  'You  will  sail  on  the  Lusitania  yourself  next 
Friday;  an  American  guard  will  see  you  on  board, 
and  prevent  your  coming  ashore.'  The  breaking- 
off  of  diplomatic  relations  with  Germany,"  Roose 
velt  added,  "  would  probably  have  meant  war,  and 
we  were  horribly  unprepared.  But  better  war,  than 
submission  to  a  humiliation  which  no  President  of 
this  country  has  ever  before  allowed;  better  war  a 
thousand  times,  than  to  let  the  Germans  go  on  really 
making  war  upon  us  at  sea,  and  honeycombing  the 
American  people  with  plots  on  land,  while  our  Gov 
ernment  shamelessly  lavishes  praise  on  the  crimi 
nal  for  his  justice  and  humanity  and  virtually  begs 
his  pardon." 

Thus  believed  Roosevelt  in  the  Lusitania  crisis, 
and  many  others  of  us  agreed  with  him.  The  stopping 

1  The  advertisement  was  printed  in  the  New  York  Times  of  April 
23, 


4i2  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

of  German  intrigues  here,  the  breaking-off  of  diplo 
matic  relations,  would  have  been  of  inestimable 
benefit  to  this  country.  It  would  have  caused  every 
American  to  rally  to  the  country's  defense.  It  would 
have  forced  the  reluctant  Administration  to  prepare 
a  navy  and  an  army.  It  would  have  sifted  the  patri 
otic  sheep  from  the  sneaking  and  spying  goats.  It 
would  have  brought  immense  comfort  to  the  Allies 
and  corresponding  despondency  to  the  Huns.  For 
Germany  plunged  into  the  war  believing  that  Eng 
land  would  remain  neutral.  When  England  came  in, 
to  redeem  her  word  of  honor,  Germany's  frantic  pur 
pose  was  to  have  us  keep  neutral  and  supply  her 
with  food  and  munitions.  Had  she  known  that  there 
was  any  possibility  of  our  actively  joining  the  Allies, 
she  would  have  hastened  to  make  peace.  Our  first 
troops  could  have  reached  France  in  the  early  spring 
of  1916.  They  would  not  have  been,  of  course,  shock 
troops,  but  their  presence  in  France  would  have 
been  an  assurance  to  the  Allies  that  we  were  com 
ing  with  all  our  force,  and  the  Germans  would  soon 
have  understood  that  this  meant  their  doom.  By 
the  summer  of  1916,  the  war  would  have  been 
over. 

Think  what  this  implies!  Two  years  and  a  half  of 
fighting  would  never  have  taken  place.  At  least  three 
million  lives  among  the  Allied  armies  would  have 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  413 

been  saved.  Russia  would  have  been  spared  revolu 
tion,  chaos,  Bolshevism.  Some,  at  least,  of  the  myri 
ads  of  massacred  Armenians  would  not  have  been 
slain.  Thousands  of  square  miles  of  devastated  terri 
tory  would  not  have  been  spoiled.  A  hundred  billions 
of  dollars  for  equipping  and  carrying  on  the  war 
would  never  have  been  spent.  All  this  is  not  an  idle 
dream;  it  is  the  calm  statement  of  what  would  prob 
ably  have  happened  if  President  Wilson,  after  the 
Lusitania  outrage,  had  dared  to  break  with  Ger 
many.  History  will  hold  him  accountable  for  those 
millions  of  lives  sacrificed,  for  the  unspeakable  suffer 
ing  which  the  people  of  the  ravaged  regions  had  to 
endure,  for  the  dissolution  of  Russia,  which  threat 
ened  to  throw  down  the  bases  of  our  civilization, 
and  for  the  waste  of  incalculable  treasure. 

President  Wilson's  apologists  assert  that  the  coun 
try  was  not  ready  for  him  to  take  any  resolute  atti 
tude  towards  Germany  in  May,  1915.  They  argue 
that  if  he  had  attempted  to  do  so  there  would  have 
been  great  internal  dissension,  perhaps  even  civil 
war,  and  especially  that  the  German  sections  would 
have  opposed  preparations  for  war  so  stubbornly  as 
to  have  made  them  impossible.  This  is  pure  assump 
tion.  The  truth  is  that  whenever  or  wherever  an 
appeal  was  made  to  American  patriotism,  it  met 
with  an  immediate  response.  The  sinking  of  the 


4i4  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Lusitania  created  such  a  storm  of  horror  and  indig 
nation  that  if  the  President  had  lifted  a  finger,  the 
manhood  of  America,  and  the  womanhood,  too, 
would  have  risen  to  back  him  up.  But  instead  of 
lifting  a  finger,  he  wrote  that  message  to  Germany, 
praising  the  Germans  for  their  traditional  respect 
for  justice  and  humanity.  And  a  long  time  had  yet 
to  pass  before  he  made  the  least  sign  of  encourage 
ment  to  those  Americans  who  would  uphold  the 
honor  of  the  United  States  and  would  have  this,  the 
greatest  of  Republics,  take  its  due  part  in  defending 
Democracy  against  the  Huns'  attempt  to  wipe 
Democracy  off  the  earth  forever. 

Having  missed  his  opportunity  then,  Mr.  Wilson 
could  of  course  plead  that  the  country  was  less  and 
less  inclined  to  go  to  war,  because  he  furnished  the 
pro-German  plotters  the  very  respite  they  had  needed 
for  carrying  on  their  work.  By  unavowed  ways  they 
secured  a  strong  support  among  the  members  of  the 
National  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Senate. 
They  disguised  themselves  as  pacifists,  and  they 
found  it  easy  to  wheedle  the  " lunatic  fringe"  of 
native  pacifists  into  working  for  the  domination  of 
William  of  Hohenzollern  over  the  United  States, 
and  for  the  establishing  of  his  world  dominion.  The 
Kaiser's  propagandists  spread  evil  arguments  to  jus 
tify  all  the  Kaiser's  crimes,  and  they  found  willing 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  415 

disciples  even  among  the  members  of  the  Adminis 
tration  to  repeat  and  uphold  these  arguments. 

They  told  us,  for  instance,  that  their  massacre 
served  the  victims  of  the  Lusitania  right  for  taking 
passage  on  a  British  steamship.  They  even  wished 
to  pass  a  law  forbidding  Americans  from  traveling 
on  the  ocean  at  all,  because,  by  doing  so,  they  might 
be  blown  up  by  the  Germans,  and  that  would  in 
volve  this  country  in  diplomatic  difficulties  with 
Germany.  Next,  the  Germans  protested  against  our 
selling  munitions  of  war  to  the  Allies.  Neither  cus 
tom  nor  international  law  forbade  doing  this,  and 
the  protest  stood  out  in  stark  impudence  when  it 
came  from  Germany,  the  country  which,  for  fifty 
years  and  more,  had  sold  munitions  to  every  one 
who  asked  and  had  not  hesitated  to  sell  impartially 
to  both  antagonists  in  the  Russo-Japanese  War.  By 
playing  on  the  sentimentality  of  this  same  "  lunatic 
fringe,"  the  German  intriguers  almost  succeeded  in 
driving  through  a  bill  to  stop  this  traffic.  They  knew 
the  true  Prussian  way  of  whimpering  when  bullying 
did  not  avail  them.  And  so  they  not  only  whimpered 
about  our  sending  shells  over  to  kill  the  German 
soldiers,  but  they  whimpered  also  over  the  dire  ef 
fects  which  the  Allied  blockade  produced  upon  the 
non-combatant  population  of  Germany. 

These  things  went  on,  not  only  a  whole  year,  but 


4i6  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

far  into  the  second  after  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania. 
Roosevelt  never  desisted  from  charging  that  the  per 
son  ultimately  responsible  for  them  was  President 
Wilson,  and  he  believed  that  the  President's  appar 
ent  self-satisfaction  would  avail  him  little  when  he 
stands  at  the  bar  of  History. 

It  may  be  that  an  entire  people  may  lose  for  a 
time  its  sense  of  logic.  We  have  just  had  the  most 
awful  proof  that,  through  a  long-continued  and  de 
liberate  education  for  that  purpose,  the  German 
people  lost  its  moral  sense  and  set  up  diabolical 
standards  in  place  of  those  common  to  all  civilized 
races.  We  know  that  religious  hysteria  has  at  differ 
ent  times,  like  the  influenza,  swept  over  a  nation,  or 
that  a  society  has  lost  its  taste  for  generations  to 
gether  in  art,  and  in  poetry.  We  remember  that  the 
Witchcraft  Delusion  obsessed  our  ancestors.  It  is 
not  impossible,  therefore,  that  between  1914  and 
1918  the  American  people  passed  through  a  stage 
in  which  it  threw  logic  to  the  winds.  This  would 
account  at  least  for  its  infatuation  for  President 
Wilson,  in  spite  of  his  undisguised  inconsistencies 
and  appalling  blunders.  A  people  who  thought  logic 
ally  and  kept  certain  principles  steadily  before  it, 
could  hardly  otherwise  have  tolerated  Mr.  Wilson's 
"  too-proud-to-fight "  speech,  and  his  message  to 
Germany  after  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  Or  his 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  417 

subsequent  endeavor  to  make  the  Americans  think 
that  there  was  no  choice  between  the  causes  for 
which  the  Allies  and  the  Teutons  were  fighting.  Was 
it  not  he  who  said  that  Europe  was  war-mad,  and 
that  America  had  better  mind  her  own  business, 
and  look  the  other  way?  Did  he  not  declare  that  we 
were  forced  into  war,  and  then  that  we  were  not? 
That  a  President  of  the  United  States  should  assert 
or  even  insinuate  these  things  during  the  great  War 
for  Humanity  —  and  by  Humanity  I  mean  every 
trait,  every  advance  which  has  lifted  men  above  the 
level  of  the  beast,  where  they  originated,  to  the  level 
of  the  human  with  its  potential  ascent  to  heights 
undreamed  of  -  -  is  amazing  now:  what  will  it  be  a 
generation  hence? 

Roosevelt  watched  impatiently  while  these  strange 
phases  passed  before  him.  He  listened  angrily  at  the 
contradictory  utterances.  He  felt  the  ignominy  of 
our  country's  being  at  such  a  depth.  He  knew  Ger 
many  too  well  to  suppose  that  she  could  be  deterred 
by  President  Wilson's  messages.  He  saw  something 
comic  in  shaking  a  long  fore-finger  and  saying,  "Tut, 
tut!  I  shall  consider  being  very  harsh,  if  you  commit 
these  outrages  three  more  times."  To  shake  your 
fist  at  all,  and  then  to  shake  your  finger,  seemed  to 
Roosevelt  almost  imbecile.  Cut  off  from  serving  the 
cause  of  American  patriotism  in  any  public  capacity, 


418  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  struggled  to  take  his  part  by  writing. 
Every  month  in  the  Outlook,  and  subsequently  in 
the  Metropolitan  Magazine,  he  gave  vent  to  his  pent- 
up  indignation.  The  very  titles  of  some  of  his  papers 
reveal  his  animus:  "Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own 
Part";  "A  Sword  for  Defense";  " America  First: 
A  Phrase  or  a  Fact?";  "Uncle  Sam's  Only  Friend  is 
Uncle  Sam";  "Dual  Nationality";  "Preparedness." 
In  each  of  these  he  poured  forth  with  unflagging 
vehemence  the  fundamental  verities  on  which  our 
American  society  should  rest.  He  showed  that  it 
was  not  a  mere  competition  in  letter- writing  be 
tween  the  honey-worded  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  sophis 
ticated  Bernstorff  or  the  Caliban-sly  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  but  that  God  was  in  the  crisis,  and  that  no 
adroitness  of  phrase  or  trick  of  diplomacy  could  get 
rid  of  Him.  He  showed  that  there  could  not  be  two 
kinds  of  Americans:  one  genuine,  which  believed 
wholly  and  singly  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
other  cunning  and  mongrel,  which  swore  allegiance 
to  the  United  States  —  lip  service  —  and  kept  its 
allegiance  to  Germany  —  heart  service.  He  lost  no 
opportunity  to  make  his  illustrations  clear.  On  re 
signing  as  Secretary  of  State  after  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  because  President  Wilson  insisted  on 
mildly  calling  Germany's  attention  to  that  crime, 
Mr.  Bryan  addressed  a  large  audience  of  Germans. 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  419 

Then  Roosevelt  held  him  up  to  the  gaze  of  the 
American  people  as  a  man  who  had  no  true  Ameri 
canism. 

Lest  I  should  be  suspected  of  misinterpreting  or 
exaggerating  Roosevelt's  opinion  of  President.  Wil 
son,  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  I  quote 
two  or  three  passages,  taken  at  random,  which  will 
prove,  I  hope,  that  I  have  summarized  him  truly. 

He  says,  for  instance: 

Professional  pacifists  of  the  type  of  Messrs.  Bryan,  Jordan, 
and  Ford,  who  in  the  name  of  peace  preach  doctrines  that 
would  entail  not  merely  utter  infamy,  but  utter  disaster  to 
their  own  country,  never  in  practice  venture  to  denounce 
concrete  wrong  by  dangerous  wrongdoers.  .  .  . 

These  professional  pacifists,  through  President  Wilson, 
have  forced  the  country  into  a  path  of  shame  and  dishonor 
during  the  past  eighteen  months.  Thanks  to  President  Wilson, 
the  most  powerful  of  Democratic  nations  has  refused  to  rec 
ognize  the  binding  moral  force  of  international  public  law. 
Our  country  has  shirked  its  clear  duty.  One  outspoken  and 
straightforward  declaration  by  this  government  against  the 
dreadful  iniquities  perpetrated  in  Belgium,  Armenia,  and 
Servia  would  have  been  worth  to  humanity  a  thousand  times 
as  much  as  all  that  the  professional  pacifists  have  done  in 
the  past  fifty  years.  .  .  .  Fine  phrases  become  sickening  when 
they  represent  nothing  whatever  but  adroitness  in  phrase- 
making,  with  no  intention  of  putting  deeds  behind  the 
phrases. 

After  the  American  messages  in  regard  to  the 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania  had  brought  no  apology, 
much  less  any  suggestion  of  redress,  Roosevelt  said: 


420  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Apparently  President  Wilson  has  believed  that  the  Ameri 
can  people  would  permanently  forget  their  dead  and  would 
slur  over  the  dishonor  and  disgrace  to  the  United  States  by 
that  basest  of  all  the  base  pleas  of  cowardly  souls  which  finds 
expression  in  the  statement:  "  Oh,  well,  anyhow  the  President 
kept  us  out  of  war!"  The  people  who  make  this  plea  assert 
with  quavering  voices  that  they  "are  behind  the  President." 
So  they  are;  well  behind  him.  The  farther  away  from  the  posi 
tion  of  duty  and  honor  and  hazard  he  has  backed,  the  farther 
behind  him  these  gentry  have  stood  —  or  run. 

Finally,  Roosevelt  stated  with  deadly  clearness 
the  position  into  which  Wilson's  vacillating  policy 
had  driven  us: 

The  United  States  has  not  a  friend  in  the  world.  Its  con 
duct,  under  the  leadership  of  its  official  representatives,  for 
the  last  five  years  and,  above  all,  for  the  last  three  years,  has 
deprived  it  of  the  respect  and  has  secured  for  it  the  contempt 
of  every  one  of  the  great  civilized  nations  of  mankind.  Peace 
treaties  and  windy  Fourth-of-July  eloquence  and  the  base 
materialism  which  seeks  profit  as  an  incident  to  the  abandon 
ment  of  duty  will  not  help  us  now.  For  five  years  our  rulers 
at  Washington  have  believed  that  all  this  people  cared  for 
was  easy  money,  absence  of  risk  and  effort,  and  sounding 
platitudes  which  were  not  reduced  to  action.  We  have  so 
acted  as  to  convince  other  nations  that  in  very  truth  we  are 
too  proud  to  fight ;  and  the  man  who  is  too  proud  to  fight  is  in 
practice  always  treated  as  just  proud  enough  to  be  kicked. 
We  have  held  our  peace  when  our  women  and  children  were 
slain.  We  have  turned  away  our  eyes  from  the  sight  of  our 
brother's  woe. 

"He  kept  us  out  of  war,"  was  a  paradoxical  battle- 
cry  for  one  who  in  a  very  short  time  thereafter  wished 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  421 

to  pose  as  the  winner  of  the  greatest  war  in  history. 
But  the  battle-cry,  it  turned  out,  was  used  chiefly 
for  political  purposes.  The  year  1916  was  a  Presiden 
tial  year  and  his  opponents  suspected  that  every 
thing  President  Wilson  had  done  at  home  or  abroad 
had  been  planned  by  him  with  a  view  to  the  effect 
which  it  might  have  on  his  reelection.  Politicians  of 
all  parties  saw  that  the  war  was  the  vital  question 
to  be  decided  by  the  political  campaign.  For  the 
Democrats,  Wilson  was,  of  course,  the  only  candi 
date;  but  the  Republicans  and  the  Progressives  had 
their  own  schism  to  settle.  First  of  all,  they  must 
attempt  to  reunite  and  to  present  a  candidate  whom 
both  factions  would  support;  if  they  did  not,  the 
catastrophe  of  1912  would  be  repeated,  and  Wilson 
would  again  easily  win  against  two  warring  Pro 
gressive  and  Republican  candidates.  The  elections 
in  1914  showed  that  the  Progressive  Party  was  dis 
integrating.  Should  its  leaders  strive  now  to  revive 
its  strength  or  should  they  bow  to  the  inevitable, 
combine  with  the  Republicans  on  a  satisfactory  can 
didate,  and  urge  all  the  Progressives  as  a  patriotic 
duty  to  support  him? 

All  depended  on  Roosevelt's  decision.  After  re 
flection,  he  consented  to  run  for  nomination  by  the 
Progressives.  It  soon  became  plain,  however,  that 
the  Republicans  would  not  take  him  back.  The 


422  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Machine  did  not  want  him  on  any  terms:  many  of 
the  Republicans  blinding  themselves  to  the  fact  that, 
as  the  number  of  votes  cast  in  1912  proved,  Taft 
and  not  he  had  split  the  Republican  Party,  held 
Roosevelt  responsible  for  the  defeat  in  that  year. 
One  heard  also  of  some  Republicans  who,  for  lack 
of  a  better  reason,  opposed  Roosevelt  because,  they 
said,  that  Roosevelt  having  put  Taft  into  the  Presi 
dency,  ought  not  to  have  "gone  back"  on  him.  Yet 
these  same  persons,  if  they  had  taken  a  partner  into 
their  firm  to  carry  on  a  certain  policy,  and  had  found 
him  pursuing  a  different  one,  would  hardly  have 
argued  that  they  were  in  loyalty  bound  to  continue 
to  support  this  partner  as  long  as  he  chose.  The  con 
sideration  which  weighed  with  a  much  larger  num 
ber,  however,  was  that  Roosevelt  had  so  antagonized 
the  German  vote  and  the  Pacifist  vote  and  all  the 
other  anti-American  votes,  that  he  might  not  be  a 
winning  candidate.  Accordingly,  the  Republicans 
sought  for  somebody  who  would  please  everybody, 
and  yet  would  have  enough  personal  strength  to  be  a 
leader.  They  pitched  on  Charles  E.  Hughes,  former 
Governor  of  New  York  State,  and  then  a  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  un 
wisdom  of  going  to  the  Supreme  Bench  for  a  stand 
ard-bearer  was  immediately  apparent;  because  all 
the  proprieties  prevented  Justice  Hughes  from  ex- 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  423 

pressing  any  opinion  on  political  subjects  until  he 
resigned  from  the  Court.  Hence,  it  followed  that  no 
great  enthusiasm  could  be  aroused  over  his  candi 
dacy  for  nomination  since  nobody  knew  what  his 
policy  would  be. 

The  Progressives  held  their  Convention  in  Chicago 
on  June  5th,  the  same  day  that  the  Republicans  met 
there.  Some  of  the  original,  Simon-Pure  Progressives 
disapproved  of  this  collusion,  declaring  that  it  repre 
sented  a  "deal,"  and  that  the  Progressive  Party, 
which  had  come  into  existence  as  a  rebuke  of  Ma 
chine  politics,  ought  never  to  soil  itself  by  enter 
ing  into  a  "deal."  Nevertheless,  the  will  of  the 
more  worldly-minded  prevailed,  and  they  probably 
thought  that  there  would  be  a  better  chance  to 
have  the  Republicans  nominate  Roosevelt  if  he  were 
already  the  nominee  of  the  Progressives.  But  they 
were  disappointed.  They  nominated  Roosevelt  and 
the  Republicans  Justice  Hughes.  Suspense  followed 
as  to  whether  Roosevelt,  by  accepting,  would  oblige 
the  Progressives  to  organize  another  campaign.  He 
sent  only  a  conditional  acceptance  to  the  Progres 
sive  Committee  and,  a  few  days  later,  he  announced 
publicly  that  he  would  support  Justice  Hughes,  be 
cause  he  regarded  the  defeat  of  Wilson  as  the  most 
vital  object  before  the  American  people. 

I  find  among  my  correspondence  from  him  a  reply 


424  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

to  a  letter  of  mine  in  which  I  had  quite  needlessly 
urged  this  action  upon  him.  I  quote  this  passage 
because  it  epitomizes  what  might  be  expanded  over 
many  pages.  The  letter  is  dated  June  16,  1916: 

I  agree  entirely  with  you.  I  shall  do  all  I  can  for  Mr.  Hughes. 
But  don't  forget  that  Mr.  Hughes  alone  can  make  it  possible 
for  me  to  be  efficient  in  his  behalf.  If  he  merely  speaks  like 
Mr.  Wilson,  only  a  little  more  weakly,  he  will  rob  my  support 
of  its  effectiveness.  Speeches  such  as  those  of  mine,  to  which 
you  kindly  allude,  have  their  merit  only  if  delivered  for  a 
man  who  is  himself  speaking  uncompromisingly  and  without 
equivocation.  I  have  just  sent  word  to  Hughes  through  one 
of  our  big  New  York  financiers  to  make  a  smashing  attack  on 
Wilson  for  his  actions,  and  to  do  it  immediately,  in  connection 
with  this  Democratic  Nominating  Convention.  Wilson  was 
afraid  of  me.  He  never  dared  answer  me;  but  if  Hughes  lets 
him,  he  will  proceed  to  take  the  offensive  against  Hughes. 
I  shall  do  everything  I  can  for  him,  but  don't  forget  that  the 
efficiency  of  what  I  do  must  largely  depend  upon  Hughes. 

Roosevelt  was  as  good  as  his  word,  and  made  four 
or  five  powerful  speeches  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Hughes, 
speeches  which  gave  a  sharper  edge  to  the  Republi 
cans'  fight.  But  their  campaign  was  obviously  mis 
managed.  They  put  their  candidate  to  the  torture 
of  making  two  transcontinental  journeys,  in  which 
he  had  to  speak  incessantly,  and  they  warned  him 
against  uttering  any  downright  criticism  of  the  anti- 
American  throng,  whose  numbers  being  unknown 
were  feared.  President  Wilson,  on  the  other  hand, 
unexpectedly  flared  up  in  a  retort  which  doubtless 


Facsimile 

ILL.          ^t^  * 


SAGAMORE    HILL.  ^  7    /  ^*^ 


%^~r 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  425 

won  votes  for  him.  Jeremiah  O'Leary,  an  Irish  agi 
tator  in  relations  with  the  German  propagandists, 
tried  to  catch  Mr.  Wilson  in  a  pro-British  snare. 
The  President  replied:  "  I  would  feel  deeply  mortified 
.to  have  you  or  anybody  like  you  vote  for  me.  Since 
you  have  access  to  so  many  disloyal  Americans,  and 
I  have  not,  I  will  ask  you  to  convey  this  message  to 
them." 

The  result  of  the  election,  which  took  place  on 
November  5th,  hung  in  suspense  for  many  days. 
Then  it  appeared  that  Wilson,  by  capturing  thirteen 
California  votes,  had  won  by  277  electoral  votes 
to  254  for  Hughes.  Of  the  popular  vote,  Wilson  got 
9,128,000  and  Hughes,  8,536,000.  So  the  slogan, 
"He  kept  us  out  of  war,"  accomplished  its  purpose. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND 

DURING  the  winter  of  1916-17,  Roosevelt 
never  relaxed  his  criticism  of  President  Wil 
son's  dilatory  and  evasive  policy,  or  his  efforts  to 
arouse  the  American  people  to  a  sense  of  their  duty 
to  civilization.  By  this  time  the  President  himself 
felt  that  it  was  safe  for  him  to  speak  up  in  behalf  of 
Americanism.  The  year  before,  Roosevelt  having 
been  assured  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to  make 
American  and  pro-Ally  speeches  in  the  Middle  West, 
went  straight  to  the  so-called  German  cities,  and 
was  most  enthusiastically  received  where  it  had  been 
predicted  he  would  be  hooted  and  even  mobbed. 
President  Wilson  ventured  to  follow  him  some  time 
later,  and  suffered  no  harm.  By  the  summer  of  1916 
he  became  almost  reckless,  as  it  seemed,  in  his  utter 
ances.  He  said  to  the  graduating  cadets  at  West 
Point:  "My  conception  of  America  is  a  conception 
of  infinite  dignity,  along  with  quiet,  unquestionable 
power.  I  ask  you,  gentlemen,  to  join  with  me  in  that 
conception,  and  let  us  all  in  our  several  spheres  be 
soldiers  together  to  realize  it."  l  Once  he  declared 

1  July  14,  1916. 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  427 

that  he  too  came  of  fighting  blood.  Meanwhile,  how 
ever,  the  German  submarines  went  on  sinking  ships; 
Bernstorff  made  his  frequent  calls  of  studied  impu 
dence  at  the  White  House;  German  agents  blew  up 
munitions  factories  and  the  warehouses  where  shells 
were  stored  before  shipment;  and  the  process  of 
spreading  Prussian  gangrene  throughout  our  country 
went  on  unchecked. 

Worse  than  this,  the  military  situation  in  Europe 
was  almost  disheartening.  Imperial  Russia  had  dis 
appeared  and  the  Germans  were  preparing  to  carve 
up  the  vast  amorphous  Russian  carcass.  Having 
driven  their  way  through  the  Balkans  to  Constanti 
nople  they  were  on  the  point  of  opening  their  boasted 
direct  route  from  Berlin  to  Bagdad.  England,  France 
and  Italy  began  to  feel  war-weary.  The  German  sub 
marines  threatened  to  cut  off  their  supplies  of  food, 
and  unless  the  Allied  countries  could  be  succored 
they  might  be  starved  into  making  peace.  When 
they  looked  across  the  Atlantic  they  beheld  this 
mighty  Republic  leaving  them  in  the  lurch,  too  busy 
piling  up  millions  of  dollars  drawn  from  the  Allies  in 
their  distress  to  heed  that  distress,  and  drugging  their 
compunctions,  if  they  had  any,  by  saying  to  them 
selves  that  a  nation  may  be  "too  proud  to  fight," 
and  that  they  had  the  best  authority  for  remember 
ing  that  they  must  remain  "neutral  even  in  thought." 


428  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

I  need  not  describe  in  detail  what  Roosevelt 
thought  of  this.  He  himself  expressed  his  scorn  for 
making  war  by  rhetoric.  He  knew  that  a  man  may 
boast  of  coming  of  fighting  blood,  and  come  so  late 
that  all  the  fighting  quality  in  the  blood  has  evapo 
rated.  Could  not  many  of  the  Pacifists  trace  back  to 
Revolutionary  and  to  Puritan  ancestors,  who  fought 
as  they  prayed,  without  hesitation  or  doubt,  for  the 
Lord  of  Hosts?  They  could,  and  their  present  atti 
tude  simply  made  their  shame  the  greater.  The  Colo 
nel  had  said  very  early  in  the  conflict:  "  I  do  not  be 
lieve  that  the  firm  assertion  of  our  rights  means  war, 
but  in  any  event,  it  is  well  to  remember  there  are 
things  worse  than  war."  In  1917  he  declared:  "For 
two  years  after  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  we  continued 
to  fawn  on  the  blood-stained  murderers  of  our  people, 
we  were  false  to  ourselves  and  we  were  false  to  the 
cause  of  right  and  of  liberty  and  democracy  through 
out  the  world."  He  kept  hammering  at  our  need  of 
preparation.  He  told  a  great  audience  at  Detroit:1 
"We  first  hysterically  announced  that  we  would  not 
prepare  because  we  were  afraid  that  preparation 
might  make  us  lose  our  vantage-ground  as  a  peace- 
loving  people.  Then  we  became  frightened  and 
announced  loudly  that  we  ought  to  prepare;  that 
the  world  was  on  fire;  that  our  national  structure 

1  May  19,  1916. 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  429 

was  in  danger  of  catching  aflame;  and  that  we 
must  immediately  make  ready.  Then  we  turned  an 
other  somersault  and  abandoned  all  talk  of  pre 
paredness;  and  we  never  did  anything  more  than 
talk." 

At  last,  at  the  beginning  of  1917,  the  German  truc- 
ulence  became  too  great  even  for  President  Wilson 
to  palliate.  The  Kaiser,  whose  atrocious  submarine 
policy  had  already  failed,  decided  that  it  could  be 
made  to  succeed  by  increasing  its  horror.  He  pro 
posed  to  sink  indiscriminately  all  ships,  whether 
neutral  or  enemy;  but  out  of  his  Imperial  generosity 
he  would  allow  the  Americans  to  send  one  ship  a 
week  to  Falmouth,  England,  provided  it  followed 
a  certain  line  marked  out  by  him  on  the  chart,  flew 
a  certain  flag,  and  was  painted  a  color  which  he 
specified.  As  late  as  December  18,  1916,  the  Presi 
dent  had  put  forth  a  message  only  less  startling 
than  his  "  too-proud-to-fight "  dictum,  in  which  he 
announced  that  the  warring  world  must  plan  for  a 
" peace  without  victory"  if  it  would  hope  to  end 
the  war  at  all.  "  Peace  without  victory"  would  mean, 
of  course,  a  peace  favorable  to  Germany.  But  the 
Germans,  with  characteristic  stupidity,  instead  of 
using  even  a  specious  courtesy  towards  the  President 
who  had  been  long-suffering  in  their  favor,  imme- 
"diately  sent  out  their  "Once-a-week-to-Falmouth" 


430  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

order.  Perhaps  they  thought  that  Mr.  Wilson  would 
consent  even  to  that. 

President  Wilson's  friends  have  assured  us  that  he 
devotes  himself  to  finding  out  what  the  American 
people  wants  and  then  in  doing  it.  He  soon  learned 
what  the  American  people  wanted,  after  it  un 
derstood  the  purport  of  the  "  Once-a-week-to-Fal- 
mouth"  order;  and  after  the  interchange  of  two  or 
three  more  notes,  he  broke  off  relations  with  Ger 
many  on  April  6,  1917.  At  last,  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
the  United  States  by  President  Wilson's  consent 
joined  the  great  alliance  of  free  nations  in  their  life- 
and-death  struggle  to  make  the  world  safe  for  De 
mocracy. 

Now  the  President  had  to  prepare  for  war,  and  pre 
pare  in  haste,  which  rendered  careful  plans  and  econ 
omy  impossible.  At  the  start,  there  was  much  debate 
over  the  employment  of  Volunteers,  the  rating  of 
Regulars,  and  the  carrying  out  of  a  selective  draft. 

True  to  his  policy  of  timidity  and  evasion  Presi 
dent  Wilson  did  not  openly  declare  war  on  Germany, 
but  allowed  us  to  drift  into  a  state  of  war;  so  execu 
tives  who  do  not  wish  either  to  sign  or  veto  a  bill  let 
it  become  a  law  without  their  signatures.  His  Secre 
tary  of  War,  Lindley  M.  Garrison,  the  only  member 
of  his  Cabinet  who  had  marked  ability,  had  resigned 
the  year  before,  having  apparently  found  the  official 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  431 

atmosphere  uncongenial.  At  the  Plattsburg  camp, 
commanded  by  General  Leonard  Wood,  Colonel 
Roosevelt  made  a  speech  of  ringing  patriotism  and 
of  unveiled  criticism  of  the  lack  of  energy  in  the 
Administration.  It  was  not  a  politic  thing  to  do, 
although  there  seems  to  have  been  some  confusion 
between  what  the  Colonel  said  to  the  Volunteers  in 
camp,  and  what  he  said  that  same  evening  to  a  gath 
ering  of  civilians  in  the  town.  The  indiscretion,  how 
ever,  gave  the  Administration  the  opportunity  it  had 
been  waiting  for;  but,  being  unable  to  punish  Roose 
velt,  it  severely  reprimanded  General  Wood,  who  had 
not  been  aware  of  what  the  Colonel  intended  to  say. 
Indeed,  the  offensive  remarks  seem  to  have  been  ex 
temporaneous,  because,  as  it  was  too  dark  for  him  to 
read  his  prepared  speech,  he  spoke  impromptu.  In 
any  event,  Secretary  Garrison  had  due  notice  that 
Roosevelt  was  to  speak,  and  if  he  had  had  any 
doubts  he  should  have  sent  word  to  General  Wood  to 
cancel  the  engagement.  The  Administration  made  as 
much  as  it  could  out  of  this  impropriety,  but  the 
public  saw  the  humor  of  it,  because  it  knew  that  Sec 
retary  Garrison  agreed  with  Roosevelt  and  Wood  in 
their  crusade  for  preparedness. 

Later,  when  Mr.  Garrison  resigned,  President  Wil 
son  put  Mr.  Newton  D.  Baker,  a  Pacifist,  in  his 
place,  and  after  war  came,  the  military  preparation 


432  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  direction  of  the  United  States  were  entrusted  to 
him.  But  it  does  not  belong  to  this  biographical 
sketch  to  narrate  the  story  of  the  American  conduct 
of  the  war  under  the  Wilson  Administration. 

To  Roosevelt,  the  vital  fact  was  that  war  was  at 
hand,  the  great  object  for  which  he  had  striven  dur 
ing  two  years  and  eight  months,  the  participation 
in  the  war  which  would  redeem  the  honor  of  the 
United  States,  call  forth  the  courage  of  its  citizens, 
make  Americans  alone  dominant  in  America  and  so 
purge  this  Republic  of  the  taints  of  pro- Germanism, 
of  commercial  greed,  and  of  ignoble  worship  of  ma 
terial  safety,  that  it  could  take  its  part  again  at  the 
head  of  the  democracies  of  the  world.  He  thanked 
God  that  his  country  could  stand  out  again  untar 
nished.  And  then  a  great  exultation  came  over  him,  as 
he  believed  that  at  last  he  himself  having  put  on  his 
sword,  would  be  allowed  to  join  the  American  army 
bound  overseas,  share  its  dangers  and  glories  in  the 
field,  and,  if  Fate  so  willed  it,  pay  with  his  body  the 
debt  of  patriotism  which  nothing  else  could  pay. 
He  wrote  immediately  to  the  War  Department,  offer 
ing  his  services  and  agreeing  to  raise  a  division  or 
more  of  Volunteers,  to  be  sent  to  the  front  with  the 
briefest  delay.  But  Secretary  Baker  replied  that 
without  authorization  by  Congress,  he  could  not 
accept  such  bodies  of  Volunteers.  On  being  pressed 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  433 

further,  Mr.  Baker  replied  that  the  War  College  Di 
vision  of  the  General  Staff  wished  the  officers  of  the 
Regular  Army  to  be  kept  at  home,  in  order  to  train 
new  men,  and  then  to  lead  the  first  contingents  which 
might  go  abroad.1 

Meanwhile,  at  the  first  suggestion  that  Roosevelt 
might  head  a  body  of  troops  himself,  letters  poured 
upon  him  from  every  State  in  the  Union,  from  men 
of  all  classes  eager  to  serve  under  him,  and  eager,  in 
this  way,  to  wipe  out  the  shame  which  they  felt  the 
Administration,  by  its  delays  and  supineness,  had 
put  upon  the  nation.  Then  Congress  passed  the 
Draft  Law,  and,  on  May  18,  Roosevelt  appealed 
again,  this  time  directly  to  President  Wilson,  offering 
to  raise  four  divisions.  The  President,  in  a  public 
statement,  declared  that  purely  military  reasons 
caused  him  to  reject  the  plan.  In  a  telegram  to  Colonel 
Roosevelt  he  said  that  his  action  was  "  based  entirely 
upon  imperative  considerations  of  public  policy,  and 
not  upon  personal  or  private  choice."  Roosevelt 
summed  up  the  contention  with  this  flat  contradic 
tion:  "President  Wilson's  reasons  for  refusing  my 
offer  had  nothing  to  do  either  with  military  con 
siderations  or  with  public  needs. " 

1  The  entire  correspondence  between  General  Wood  and  President 
Wilson  and  Secretary  Baker  is  given  in  The  Foes  of  Our  Own  House 
hold,  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  (Doran,  New  York,  1917),  pp.  304-47. 


434  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt  issued  an  announcement  to  the  men  who 
had  applied  for  service  under  him  —  they  were  said 
already  to  number  over  300,000  —  regretting  that 
they  could  not  all  go  together  on  their  country's  er 
rand,  and  brushing  aside  the  insinuation  of  his  ene 
mies  that  he  was  merely  seeking  political  and  self 
ish  ends.  That  is  a  charge,  of  course,  to  which  all  of 
our  statesmen,  from  Washington  down,  have  been  ex 
posed.  Its  final  refutation  comes  from  examining  the 
entire  public  career  and  the  character  of  the  person 
accused.  To  any  one  who  knew  what  Roosevelt's 
life  had  been,  and  who  knew  how  poignantly  he  felt 
the  national  dangers  and  humiliation  of  the  past 
three  years,  the  idea  that  he  was  playing  politics, 
and  merely  pretending  to  be  terribly  in  earnest  as  a 
patriot,  is  grotesque.  And  I  believe  that  no  greater 
disappointment  ever  came  to  him  than  when  he  was 
prohibited  from  going  out  to  battle  in  1917. 

Mr.  Wilson  and  the  obsolescent  members  of  the 
General  Staff  had  obviously  a  plausible  reason  when 
they  said  that  the  European  War  was  not  an  affair 
for  amateurs;  that  no  troops,  however  brave  and 
willing,  could,  like  the  Rough  Riders  in  the  Spanish 
War,  be  fitted  for  action  in  a  month.  Only  by  long 
drill  and  by  the  coordination  of  all  branches  of  the 
service,  organized  on  a  vaster  scale  than  the  world 
had  ever  seen  before,  and  commanded  by  experts, 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  435 

could  an  army  enter  the  field  with  any  hope  of  hold 
ing  its  own  against  the  veteran  armies  of  Europe. 

We  may  accept  this  plea,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  President  Wilson  refused  to  make  the  very  ob 
vious  use  of  Roosevelt  which  he  might  have  made. 
Roosevelt  was  known  throughout  the  world  as  the 
incarnation  of  Americanism.  If  he  had  been  sent  to 
Europe  in  April,  1917,  when  he  first  requested,  with 
only  a  corporal's  guard  to  attend  him,  he  would  have 
been  a  visible  proof  to  the  masses  in  England,  in 
France,  and  in  Italy,  that  the  United  States  had  ac 
tually  joined  the  Allies.  He  would  have  been  the 
forerunner  of  the  armies  that  were  to  follow,  and 
his  presence  would  have  heartened  immensely  the 
then  sorely  perplexed,  if  not  discouraged,  populations 
which  the  Hun  seemed  sure  to  overwhelm. 

But  President  Wilson  had  shown  no  desire  to  em 
ploy  any  American  on  any  task  where  he  might  get 
credit  which  the  President  coveted  for  himself.  In 
his  Cabinet,  his  rule  was  to  appoint  only  mediocre  or 
third-class  persons,  whose  opinions  he  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  consult.  It  was  quite  unlikely,  there 
fore,  that  he  would  give  Roosevelt  any  chance  to 
shine  in  the  service  of  the  country,  for  Roosevelt  was 
not  only  his  political  opponent,  but  his  most  formi 
dable  critic,  who  had  laid  bare  the  weakness  of  the 
Wilson  regime.  When  Cavour  was  assembling  all  the 


436  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

elements  in  Italy  to  undertake  the  great  struggle  for 
Italian  liberty  and  independence,  he  adroitly  se 
cured  the  cooperation  of  Garibaldi  and  his  followers, 
although  Garibaldi  had  declared  himself  the  personal 
enemy  of  Cavour.  Personal  enemy  or  not,  Cavour 
would  have  him  as  a  symbol,  and  Garibaldi's  con 
currence  proved  of  immense  value  to  Italy.  So  would 
that  of  Roosevelt  have  proved  to  the  Allies  if  he  had 
been  officially  accredited  by  President  Wilson.  But 
Cavour  was  a  statesman,  who  looked  far  ahead,  a 
patriot  uninfluenced  by  personal  likes  and  dislikes. 

Roosevelt  felt  his  own  deprivation  mightily,  but 
the  shutting-out  of  General  Leonard  Wood  roused 
his  anger  —  all  injustice  roused  his  anger.  As  the 
motive  for  General  Wood's  exclusion  was  not  frankly 
avowed,  the  public  naturally  drew  its  own  inferences. 
To  him,  more  than  to  any  other  American,  we  owed 
what  little  preparation  for  war  existed  when  we  en 
tered  the  war.  He  founded  the  Plattsburg  Camp;  he 
preached  very  solemnly  our  needs  and  our  dangers; 
and  he  did  these  things  at  the  very  period  when  Pres 
ident  Wilson  was  assuring  the  country  that  we  ought 
not  to  think  of  preparing.  Doubtless,  in  1919,  Mr.  Wil 
son  would  be  glad  to  have  those  sayings  of  his,  and 
many  others  —  including  the  "too  proud  to  fight," 
the  laudation  of  German  "humanity  and  justice,'* 
the  "war-mad  Europe,"  whose  ravings  did  not  con- 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  437 

cern  us,  the  " peace  without  victory"  forgotten;  but 
that  cannot  be,  and  they  rise  to  accuse  him  now. 
Macbeth  did  not  welcome  the  inopportune  visit  of 
the  Murderers  and  of  Banquo's  Ghost  at  his  ban 
quet. 

General  Wood  had  to  be  disciplined  for  allowing 
Colonel  Roosevelt  to  make  his  impolitic  speech  to  the 
Plattsburg  Volunteers;  he  was  accordingly  removed 
from  his  New  York  headquarters  to  the  South  and 
then  to  Camp  Funston  in  Kansas.  It  was  even  pro 
posed  to  relegate  him  to  the  Philippines.  When  our 
troops  began  to  go  to  France,  he  earnestly  hoped  to 
accompany  them.  There  were  whispers  that  he  was 
physically  unfit  for  the  stress  of  active  war:  but  the 
most  diligent  physical  examination  by  Army  surgeons 
who  would  have  overlooked  no  defects,  showed  him 
to  be  a  man  of  astonishing  health  and  vigor,  as  sound 
as  hickory.  On  the  technical  side,  the  best  military 
experts  regarded  him  as  the  best  general  officer  in 
the  American  Army.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  his 
physical  and  military  qualifications,  President  Wil 
son  rejected  him.  Why?  The  unsympathetic  asserted 
that  Mr.  Wilson  took  care  to  assign  no  conspicuous 
officer  to  service  abroad  who  might  win  laurels  which 
would  bring  him  forward  as  a  Presidential  possibility 
in  1920.  On  the  other  hand,  cynics,  remembering  the 
immemorial  jealousy  between  the  Regulars  and  Vol- 


438  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

unteers  in  both  the  Army  and  Navy,  declared  that  an 
outsider  like  General  Wood,  who  had  not  come  into 
the  Army  through  West  Point,  could  expect  no  fairer 
treatment  from  the  Staff  which  his  achievements  and 
irregular  promotion  had  incensed.  History  may  be 
trusted  to  judge  equitably  on  whom  to  place  the 
blame.  But  as  Americans  recede  from  the  event,  their 
amazement  will  increase  that  any  personal  pique  or 
class  jealousy  should  have  deprived  the  United 
States  from  using  the  soldier  best  equipped  for  war 
at  the  point  where  war  was  raging.1 

While  Roosevelt  could  not  denounce  the  Admin 
istration  for  debarring  himself  from  military  service 
abroad,  he  could,  and  did,  attack  it  for  its  treatment 
of  General  Wood,  treatment  which  both  did  injustice 
to  a  brave  and  very  competent  soldier  and  deprived 
our  Army  in  its  need  of  a  precious  source  of  strength. 
Perhaps  he  drew  some  grim  amusement  from  the 
banal  utterances  of  the  Honorable  Newton  D.  Baker, 


1  In  June,  1915,  Colonel  Paul  Azan,  who  came  to  this  country  to 
command  the  French  officers  who  taught  American  Volunteers  at 
Harvard,  and  subsequently  was  commissioned  by  the  French  Govern 
ment  to  oversee  the  work  of  all  the  French  officers  in  the  United  States, 
told  me  that  the  Camp  and  Division  commanded  by  General  Wood 
were  easily  the  best  in  the  country  and  that  General  Wood  was  the 
only  General  we  had  who  in  knowledge  and  efficiency  came  up  to  the 
highest  French  standard.  Colonel  Azan  added  that  he  was  suggesting 
to  the  French  War  Department  to  invite  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  to  send  General  Wood  to  France,  but  this  request,  if  ever  made, 
was  not  followed. 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  439 

Secretary  of  War,  whom  he  frequently  referred  to 
with  appropriate  comment.  Two  months  after  we 
entered  the  war,  Mr.  Baker  issued  an  official  bulletin 
in  which  he  admitted  the  "difficulty,  disorder,  and 
confusion  in  getting  things  started,  but,"  he  said, 
"it  is  a  happy  confusion.  I  delight  in  the  fact  that 
when  we  entered  this  war  we  were  not,  like  our  ad 
versary,  ready  for  it,  anxious  for  it,  prepared  for  it, 
and  inviting  it.  Accustomed  to  peace,  we  were  not 
ready."  l  Could  anyone,  except  a  very  young  child 
at  a  soap-bubble  party  in  the  nursery,  have  spoken 
thus?  But  Mr.  Baker  was  not  a  very  young  child,  he 
was  a  Pacifist;  he  did  not  write  from  a  nursery,  but 
from  the  War  Department  of  the  United  States.  In 
the  following  October  he  announced  with  undisguised 
self-satisfaction:  "We  are  well  on  the  way  to  the 
battle-field."  This  was  too  much  for  Roosevelt,  who 
wrote:  "For  comparison  with  this  kind  of  military 
activity  we  must  go  back  to  the  days  of  Tiglath- 
Pileser,  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Pharaoh.  The  United 
States  should  adopt  the  standard  of  speed  in  war 
which  belongs  to  the  twentieth  century  A.D.  ;  we 
should  not  be  content  with,  and  still  less  boast  about, 
standards  which  were  obsolete  in  the  seventeenth 
century  B.C." 

Roosevelt  had  now  made  a   contract  with  the 

1  Official  War  Bulletin,  June  7,  1917. 


440  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Metropolitan  Magazine  to  furnish  to  it  a  monthly  ar 
ticle  on  any  topic  he  chose,  and  he  was  also  writing 
for  the  Kansas  City  Star  frequent,  and  often  daily, 
editorial  articles.  Through  these  he  gave  vent  to  his 
passionate  patriotism  and  the  reader  who  wishes  to 
measure  both  the  variety  and  the  vigor  of  his  polem 
ics  at  this  time  should  look  through  the  files  of  those 
journals.  But  this  work  by  no  means  limited  his 
activity.  As  occasion  stirred  him,  he  dispatched  his 
communications  to  other  journals.  He  wrote  letters, 
which  were  really  elaborated  arguments,  to  chance 
correspondents,  and  he  made  frequent  addresses. 
The  necessity  of  hurrying  on  the  preparation  of  our 
army  and  of  backing  up  our  troops  with  undivided 
enthusiasm  were  his  main  theme. 

But  he  delivered  himself  on  other  subjects  almost 
equally  important.  He  paid  his  respects  to  the  "  Con 
scientious  Objector,'*  and  he  insisted  at  all  times  that 
"Murder  is  not  debatable."  "Murder  is  murder," 
he  wrote  Professor  Felix  Frankfurter,  "and  it  is 
rather  more  evil  when  committed  in  the  name  of  a 
professed  social  movement."  1  Mr.  Frankfurter  was 
then  acting,  by  appointment  of  President  Wilson, 
as  counsel  to  a  Mediation  Commission,  which  was 
dealing  with  recent  crimes  of  the  Industrial  Workers 

1  December  19,  1917.  Letter  printed  in  full  in  the  Boston  Herald, 
June  4,  1919. 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  441 

of  the  World.  Anarchists,  when  arrested,  had  a  sus 
picious  way  of  professing  that  they  espoused  anarch 
ism  only  as  a  ''philosophical"  theory.  Roosevelt 
branded  several  of  the  pallia  tors  of  these-  "the 
Hearsts  and  La  Follettes  and  Bergers  and  Hillquits," 
and  others  —  as  reactionaries,  as  the  "  Bolsheviki  of 
America,"  who  really  abetted  the  violent  criminals 
by  pleading  for  leniency  for  them  on  the  ground  that 
after  all  they  were  only  " philosophical"  theorists. 
Roosevelt  was  not  fooled  by  any  such  plea.  "When 
you,"  he  told  Mr.  Frankfurter,  "as  representing 
President  Wilson,  find  yourself  obliged  to  champion 
men  of  this  stamp  [the  "philosophical"  criminals], 
you  ought  by  unequivocal  affirmative  action  to  make 
it  evident  that  you  are  sternly  against  their  general 
and  habitual  line  of  conduct." 

So  Roosevelt  pursued,  without  resting,  his  cam 
paign  to  stimulate  the  patriotic  zeal  of  his  country 
men  and  to  rebuke  the  delays  and  blunders  of  the 
Administration.  If  any  one  had  said  that  he  was 
making  rhetoric  a  substitute  for  warfare  —  the  accu 
sation  with  which  he  charged  President  Wilson  — 
he  would  have  replied  that  Wilson  condemned  him 
to  use  the  pen  instead  of  the  sword.  Forbidden  to  go 
himself,  he  felt  supreme  satisfaction  in  the  going  of 
all  his  four  sons,  and  of  his  son-in-law,  Dr.  Richard 
Derby.  They  did  honor  to  the  Roosevelt  name. 


442  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Theodore,  Jr.,  became  a  Lieutenant-Colonel,  Kermit 
and  Archibald  became  Captains;  and  Quentin,  the 
youngest,  a  Lieutenant  of  Aviation,  was  killed  in  an 
air  battle. 

Roosevelt  was  prevented  from  fighting  in  France, 
indeed,  but  he  was  gratified  to  learn  from  good 
authority  that  his  efforts  in  the  spring  of  1917  to 
secure  a  commission  and  lead  troops  over  seas  were 
the  immediate  cause  of  the  sending  of  any  American 
troops.  President  Wilson,  it  was  reported  had  no 
intention,  when  we  went  to  war,  of  risking  American 
lives  over  there,  and  the  leisurely  plans  which  he 
made  for  creating  and  training  an  army  seemed  to 
confirm  this  report.  But  Roosevelt's  insistence  and 
the  great  mass  of  volunteers  who  begged  to  be  al 
lowed  to  join  his  divisions,  if  they  were  organized, 
awakened  the  President  to  the  fact  that  the  Ameri 
can  people  expected  our  country  to  give  valid  mili 
tary  support  to  the  Allies,  at  death-grapple  with  the 
Hun.  The  visit  in  May,  1917,  of  a  French  Mission 
with  Marshal  Joffre  at  its  head,  and  of  an  English 
Mission  under  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  and  their  plain 
revelation  of  the  dire  distress  of  the  French  and 
British  armies,  forced  Mr.  Wilson  to  promise  imme 
diate  help;  for  Joffre  and  Balfour  made  him  under 
stand  that  unless  help  came  soon,  it  would  come  too 
late.  So  President  Wilson,  who  hoped  to  go  down  in 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  443 

history  as  the  Peacemaker  of  the  World  War,  and  as 
the  organizer  of  an  American  Army,  which,  without 
shedding  a  drop  of  blood,  had  brought  peace  about, 
was  compelled  to  send  the  only  too  willing  American 
soldiers,  by  the  hundred  thousand  and  the  million, 
to  join  the  Allied  veterans  in  France. 

Persons  who  do  not  penetrate  beneath  the  flicker 
ing  surfaces  of  life,  regard  these  last  years  of  Roose 
velt's  as  an  anticlimax  which  he  passed  in  eclipse; 
as  if  they  were  the  eight  lean  and  overshadowed 
years,  following  the  splendid  decade  in  which  as 
Governor  and  President  he  had  the  world's  admira 
tion  and  consent.  But  this  view  wholly  misconceives 
him.  It  takes  a  man  who  had  proved  himself  to  be 
the  greatest  moral  force  in  the  public  life  of  the  world, 
and  drops  him  when  he  steps  down  from  the  seat  of 
power.  Now,  of  course,  Theodore  Roosevelt  did  not 
require  to  walk  on  a  high  platform  or  to  sit  in  the 
equivalent  of  a  throne  in  order  to  be  Roosevelt;  and 
if  we  would  read  the  true  meaning  of  his  life  we  must 
understand  that  the  years  which  followed  1910  were 
the  culmination  and  crown  of  all  that  went  before. 

He  was  a  fighter  from  the  days  when,  as  a  little 
boy,  he  fought  the  disease  which  threatened  to 
make  his  existence  puny  and  crippled.  He  was  a 
fighter,  and  from  his  vantage-ground  as  President, 


444  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

he  fought  so  valiantly  that  the  world  took  notice  and 
he  brought  new  ideals  into  the  hearts  of  the  Ameri 
can  people.  He  was  just  as  brave  and  resourceful  and 
tenacious  a  fighter  when  he  led  the  forlorn  hope,  as 
when  he  marched  at  the  head  of  the  Nation  in  his 
campaigns  against  corruption  and  the  mercenaries 
of  Mammon.  During  these  later  years  he  gave  up 
everything -- his  ease,  his  probable  restoration  to 
power,  the  friendships  that  were  very  dear  to  him, 
even  his  party  which  no  longer,  as  he  thought,  fol 
lowed  the  path  of  righteousness,  or  desired  righteous 
ends  —  for  the  Cause  to  which  he  had  been  dedicated 
since  youth.  Analyze  his  acts  at  any  period,  and  you 
will  find  that  they  were  determined  by  his  loyalty 
to  that  Cause. 

And  how  could  so  great  a  soul  exercise  itself  to  the 
full,  except  by  grappling  with  adversity?  The  pros 
perous  days  seemed  to  fit  him  like  a  skin,  but  only 
in  these  days  of  apparent  thwarting  and  disappoint 
ment  could  he  show  himself  equal  to  any  blows  of 
Fate.  At  first  he  struggled  magnificently  against 
crushing  odds,  asking  no  allowances  and  no  favors. 
He  founded  and  led  the  Progressive  Party  and,  in 
1912,  received  the  most  amazing  popular  tribute  in 
our  history.  And  he  would  have  pushed  on  his  work 
for  that  party  had  not  the  coming  of  the  World  War 
changed  his  perspective.  Thenceforth,  he  devoted 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  445 

himself  to  saving  civilization  from  the  reptilian  and 
atrocious  Hun;  that  was  a  task,  in  comparison  with 
which  the  fortune  of  a  political  party  sank  out  of 
sight. 

His  work  demanded  of  him  to  rouse  his  country 
men  from  the  apathy  and  indifference  which  a  timid 
Administration  breathed  upon  it,  and  from  the 
lethargic  slumber  into  which  the  pro-Germans 
drugged  it.  During  four  years,  his  was  the  one 
voice  in  the  United  States  which  could  not  be  si 
lenced.  He  was  listened  to  everywhere.  Men  might 
agree  with  him  or  not,  but  they  listened  to  him,  and 
they  trusted  him.  Never  for  a  moment  did  they  sus 
pect  that  he  was  slyly  working  for  the  enemy,  or  for 
special  interests  here  or  abroad. 

He,  the  supreme  American,  spoke  for  America 
and  for  the  civilization  which  he  believed  America 
fulfilled.  His  attacks  on  the  delays  and  the  incompe 
tence,  on  the  faint-heartedness  and  contradictions 
of  the  Administration  had  no  selfish  object.  His 
heart  was  wrenched  by  the  humiliation  into  which  the 
honor  of  the  United  States  had  been  dragged.  The 
greatest  patriotic  service  which  he  could  render  was 
to  lift  it  out  of  that  slough,  and  he  did.  The  best 
evidence  that  he  was  right  lies  in  the  fact  that  Presi 
dent  Wilson,  tardily,  reluctantly,  adopted,  one  by 
one,  Roosevelt's  demands.  He  rejected  Prepared- 


446  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ness,  when  it  could  have  been  attained  with  compar 
ative  leisure;  he  accepted  it,  when  it  had  to  be  driven 
through  at  top  speed.  And  so  of  the  other  vitally 
necessary  things.  He  ceased  to  warn  Americans  that 
they  must  be  neutral  "even  in  thought";  he  ceased 
to  comfort  them  by  the  assurance  that  a  nation  may 
be  " too  proud  to  fight" ;  he  ceased  to  extol  the  "jus 
tice  and  humanity  of  the  Germans."  That  he  suf 
fered  these  changes  was  owing  to  the  fact  that 
American  public  opinion,  largely  influenced  by 
Roosevelt's  word  and  example,  would  not  tolerate 
them  any  more.  And  President  Wilson,  when  he  can, 
follows  public  opinion. 

Roosevelt  took  personal  pleasure  in  the  bridging 
of  the  chasm  which  had  opened  between  him  and 
his  former  party  intimates.  On  neither  side  was  there 
recantation,  but  they  could  unite  again  on  the  ques 
tion  of  the  War  and  America's  duty  towards  it,  which 
swallowed  up  partisan  grievances.  Many  of  the  old- 
time  Republicans  who  had  broken  politically  from 
Roosevelt  in  1912,  remained  devoted  personal  friends, 
and  they  tried  to  reunite  him  and  the  discordant 
fragments.  One  of  these  friends  was  Colonel  Robert 
Bacon,  whom  every  one  loved  and  trusted,  a  born 
conciliator.  He  it  was  who  brought  Roosevelt  and 
Senator  Root  together,  after  more  than  five  years' 
estrangement.  He  gave  a  luncheon,  at  which  they 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  447 

and  General  Leonard  Wood  met,  and  they  all  soon 
fell  into  the  old-time  familiarity.  Roosevelt  urged 
vehemently  his  desire  to  go  to  France,  and  said  that 
he  would  go  as  a  private  if  he  could  not  lead  a  regi 
ment;  that  he  was  willing  to  die  in  France  for  the 
Cause.  At  which  Mr.  Root,  with  his  characteristic 
wit,  said:  " Theodore,  if  you  will  promise  to  die 
there,  Wilson  will  give  you  any  commission  you 
want,  tomorrow." 

Roosevelt  never  fully  recovered  from  the  infection 
which  the  fever  he  caught  in  Brazil  left  in  his  system. 
It  manifested  itself  in  different  ways  and  the  one 
thing  certain  was  that  it  could  not  be  cured.  He  paid 
little  attention  to  it  except  when  it  actually  sent 
him  to  bed.  In  the  winter  of  1918,  it  caused  so  serious  . 
an  inflammation  of  the  mastoid  that  he  was  taken 
to  the  hospital  and  had  to  undergo  an  operation. 
For  several  days  his  life  hung  by  a  thread.  But,  on 
his  recovery,  he  went  about  as  usual,  and  the  public 
was  scarcely  aware  of  his  lowered  condition.  He 
wrote  and  spoke,  and  seemed  to  be  acting  with  his 
customary  vigor.  That  summer,  however,  on  July 
I4th,  his  youngest  son,  Quentin,  First  Lieutenant  in 
the  95th  American  Aero  Squadron,  was  killed  in  an 
air  battle  near  Chambray,  France.  The  lost  child  is 
the  dearest.  Roosevelt  said  nothing,  but  he  never 
got  over  Quentin's  loss.  No  doubt  he  often  asked,  in 


448  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

silence,  why  he,  whose  sands  were  nearly  run,  had 
not  been  taken  and  the  youth,  who  had  a  lifetime  to 
look  forward  to,  had  not  been  spared.  The  day  after 
the  news  came,  the  New  York  State  Republican 
Convention  met  at  Saratoga.  Roosevelt  was  to 
address  it,  and  he  walked  up  the  aisle  without  hesi 
tating,  and  spoke  from  the  platform  as  if  he  had  no 
thoughts  in  his  heart,  except  the  political  and  patri 
otic  exhortation  which  he  poured  out. 

He  passed  a  part  of  the  summer  with  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Derby,  on  the  coast  of  Maine;  and  in  the  early 
autumn,  at  Carnegie  Hall,  he  made  his  last  public 
speech,  in  behalf  of  Governor  Whitman's  candidacy. 
A  little  after  this,  he  appeared  for  the  last  time  in 
public  at  a  meeting  in  honor  of  a  negro  hospital  unit. 
In  a  few  days  another  outbreak  of  the  old  infection 
caused  his  removal  to  the  Roosevelt  Hospital.  The 
date  was  November  nth, --the  day  when  the 
Armistice  was  signed.  He  remained  at  the  hospital 
until  Christmas  Eve,  often  suffering  acutely  from 
inflammatory  rheumatism,  the  name  the  physicians 
gave  to  the  new  form  the  infection  took.  He  saw  his 
friends  for  short  intervals,  he  followed  the  news,  and 
even  dictated  letters  on  public  subjects,  but  his 
family  understood  that  his  marvelous  physical 
strength  was  being  sadly  exhausted.  He  longed  to 
be  taken  home  to  Sagamore  Hill,  and  when  his 


Copyright  by  W.  S.  Ritch 
A  FAMILY  GROUP 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Archibald  B.  Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Richard  Derby  (Ethel 
Roosevelt),  and  Three  Grandchildren 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  449 

doctor  allowed  him  to  go  home,  he  was  greatly 
cheered. 

To  spend  Christmas  there,  with  his  family,  even 
though  he  had  to  spend  it  very  quietly,  delighted 
him.  For  ten  days  he  seemed  to  be  gaining,  he  read 
much,  and  dictated  a  good  deal.  On  January  5th,  he 
reviewed  a  book  on  pheasants  and  wrote  also  a  little 
message  to  be  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  American 
Defense  Society,  which  he  was  unable  to  attend. 
That  evening  he  spent  with  the  family,  going  to  bed 
at  eleven  o'clock.  "Put  out  the  light,  please,"  he 
said  to  his  attendant,  James  Amos,  and  no  one  heard 
his  voice  again.  A  little  after  four  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  Amos,  noticing  that  he  breathed  strangely, 
called  the  nurse,  and  when  they  reached  his  bedside, 
Roosevelt  was  dead.  A  blood  clot  in  his  heart  had 
killed  him.  Death  had  unbound  Prometheus. 

By  noon  on  that  day,  the  6th  of  January,  1919, 
the  whole  world  knew  of  his  death,  and  as  the  news 
sank  in,  the  sense  of  an  unspeakable  void  was  felt 
everywhere.  He  was  buried  on  January  8th,  on  a 
knoll  in  the  small  country  graveyard,  which  he  and 
Mrs.  Roosevelt  had  long  before  selected,  overlooking 
Oyster  Bay  and  the  waters  of  the  Sound.  His  family 
and  relatives  and  dear  friends,  and  a  few  persons 
who  represented  State  and  Nation,  the  Rough  Rid 
ers,  and  learned  societies,  attended  the  services  in 


450  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

the  little  church.  Just  as  the  coffin  was  being  borne 
in,  the  sun  came  out  and  streamed  through  the 
stained-glass  windows.  "The  services  were  most  im 
pressive  in  their  simplicity,  in  their  sense  of  intimacy, 
in  the  sentiment  that  filled  the  hour  and  the  place  of 
personal  loss  and  of  pride  of  possession  of  a  priceless 
memory."  The  bearers  took  the  coffin  through  the 
grove,  with  its  bare  trees  and  light  sifting  of  snow, 
to  the  grave;  and  as  it  was  committed,  there  were 
many  sobs  and  tears  of  old  and  young.  Rough  Riders, 
who  had  fought  by  his  side,  cabinet  ministers  who 
had  served  with  him,  companions  of  his  work  and  of 
his  playtime,  were  all  mourners  now,  and  some  of 
those  men  of  affairs,  who  had  done  their  utmost  to 
wreck  him  eight  years  before,  now  knew  that  they 
had  loved  him,  and  they  grieved  as  they  realized 
what  America  and  the  world  had  lost.  "  Death  had 
to  take  him  sleeping,"  said  Vice-President  Marshall; 
"for  if  Roosevelt  had  been  awake,  there  would  have 
been  a  fight." 


The  evil  men  do  lives  after  them;  so  does  the  good. 
With  the  passing  of  years,  a  man's  name  and  fame 
either  drift  into  oblivion,  or  they  are  seen  in  their 
lasting  proportions.  You  must  sail  fifty  miles  over 
the  Ionian  Sea  and  look  back  before  you  can  fully 
measure  the  magnitude  and  majesty  of  Mount  ^Etna. 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  451 

Not  otherwise,  I  believe,  will  it  be  with  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  when  the  people  of  the  future  look  back 
upon  him.  The  blemishes  due  to  misunderstanding 
will  have  faded  away;  the  transient  clouds  will  have 
vanished;  the  world  will  see  him  as  he  was. 

I  do  not  mean  that  it  will  reduce  him  to  an  abstrac 
tion  of  perfection,  as  ill-judged  worshipers  of  George 
Washington  attempted  to  do  with  him.  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  so  vastly  human,  that  no  worshiper 
can  make  him  abstract  and  retain  recognizable  fea 
tures.  We  have  reached  the  time  when  we  will  not 
suffer  anybody  to  turn  our  great  ones  into  gods  or 
demigods,  and  to  remove  them  far  from  us  to  dwell, 
like  absentee  deities,  on  a  remote  Olympus,  or  in  an 
unimaginable  Paradise;  we  must  have  them  near, 
intimates  whom  our  souls  can  converse  with,  and  our 
hearts  love.  Such  an  intimate  was  Roosevelt  living, 
and  such  an  intimate  will  he  be  dead.  Washington, 
Lincoln,  Roosevelt  —  those  are  the  three  whom 
Americans  will  cherish  and  revere;  each  of  them  a 
leader  and  representative  and  example  in  a  structural 
crisis  in  our  national  life. 

Those  of  us  who  knew  him,  knew  him  as  the  most 
astonishing  human  expression  of  the  Creative  Spirit 
we  had  ever  seen.  His  manifold  talents,  his  protean 
interests,  his  tireless  energy,  his  thunderbolts  which 
he  did  not  let  loose,  as  well  as  those  he  did,  his  mas- 


452  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

terful  will  sheathed  in  self-control  like  a  sword  in 
its  scabbard,  would  have  rendered  him  superhuman, 
had  he  not  possessed  other  qualities  which  made  him 
the  best  of  playmates  for  mortals.  He  had  humor, 
which  raises  every  one  to  the  same  level.  He  had 
loyalty,  which  bound  his  friends  to  him  for  life.  He 
had  sympathy,  and  capacity  for  strong,  deep  love. 
How  tender  he  was  with  little  children!  How  courte 
ous  with  women!  No  matter  whether  you  brought 
to  him  important  things  or  trifles,  he  understood. 

I  can  think  of  no  vicissitude  in  life  in  which  Roose 
velt's  participation  would  not  have  been  welcome. 
If  it  were  danger,  there  could  be  no  more  valiant 
comrade  than  he;  if  it  were  sport,  he  was  a  sports 
man;  if  it  were  mirth,  he  was  a  fountain  of  mirth, 
crystal  pure  and  sparkling.  He  would  have  sailed 
with  Jason  on  the  ship  Argo  in  quest  of  the  Golden 
Fleece,  and  he  would  have  written  a  vivid  description 
of  the  adventure.  I  can  imagine  the  delight  he  would 
have  taken,  as  the  comrade  of  Ulysses,  on  his  voy 
age  through  the  Midland  Sea,  looking  with  unjaded 
curiosity  on  strange  towns  and  into  strange  faces, 
and  steering  fearlessly  out  to  the  Hesperides,  and 
beyond  the  baths  of  all  the  western  stars.  What  a 
Crusader  he  would  have  been!  How  he  would  have 
smitten  the  Paynim  with  his  sword,  and  then  unvis- 
ored  and  held  chivalrous  interview  with  Saladin! 


PROMETHEUS  UNBOUND  453 

Had  he  companioned  Columbus,  he  would  not  have 
been  one  of  those  who  murmured  and  besought  the 
great  Admiral  to  turn  back,  but  would  have  coun 
seled,  "  On !  On !  It  is  of  little  matter  whether  any  one 
man  fails  or  succeeds;  but  the  cause  shall  not  fail,  for 
it  is  the  cause  of  mankind."  I  can  see  him  with  the 
voyageurs  of  New  France,  exploring  the  Canadian 
Wilderness,  and  the  rivers  and  forests  of  the  North 
west.  I  can  see  him  with  Lasalle,  beaming  with  exul 
tation  as  they  looked  on  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi ; 
and  I  can  think  of  no  battle  for  man's  welfare  in 
which  he  would  not  have  felt  at  home.  But  he  would 
have  taken  equal,  perhaps  greater,  delight  in  meet 
ing  the  authors,  sages,  and  statesmen,  whose  words 
were  his  daily  joy,  and  whose  deeds  were  his  study 
and  incentive.  I  can  hear  him  question  Thucydides 
for  further  details  as  to  the  collapse  of  the  Athenians 
at  Syracuse ;  or  cross-examine  Herodotus  for  informa 
tion  of  some  of  his  incredible  but  fascinating  stories. 
What  hours  he  would  have  spent  in  confabulation 
with  Gibbon!  What  secrets  he  would  have  learned, 
without  asking  questions,  from  Napoleon  and 
Ca  vour ! 

His  interest  embraced  them  all,  some  of  them  he 
could  have  taught,  many  of  them  would  have  wel 
comed  him  as  their  peer.  As  he  mixed  with  high  and 
low  in  his  lifetime,  so  would  it  have  been  in  the  past; 


454  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

and  so  will  it  be  in  the  future,  if  he  has  gone  into 
a  world  where  personal  identity  continues,  and  the 
spiritual  standards  and  ideals  of  this  world  persist. 
But  yesterday,  he  seemed  one  who  embodied  Life  to 
the  utmost/  With  the  assured  step  of  one  whom  noth 
ing  can  frighten  or  surprise,  he  walked  our  earth, 
as  on  granite.  Suddenly,  the  granite  grew  more  un 
substantial  than  a  bubble,  and  he  dropped  beyond 
sight  into  the  Eternal  Silence.  Happy  we  who  had. 
such  a  friend!  Happy  the  American  Republic  which 
bore  such  a  son! 


THE  END 


MR.  JOHN  WOODBURY,  Secretary  of  the  Harvard 
Class  of  1880,  in  sending  to  his  classmates  a  notice 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt's  death  on  January  6,  1919, 
added  this  quotation  from  the  second  part  of  Bun- 
yan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress:" 

"After  this  it  was  noised  abroad  that  Mr.  Valiant- 
for-truth  was  taken  with  a  summons  by  the  same 
post  as  the  other,  and  had  this  for  a  token  that  the 
summons  was  true,  '  That  his  pitcher  was  broken  at 
the  fountain.'  When  he  understood  it,  he  called  for 
his  friends  and  told  them  of  it.  Then  he  said,  '  I  am 
going  to  my  Father's,  and  though  with  great  diffi 
culty  I  have  got  hither,  yet  now  I  do  not  repent  me 
of  all  the  trouble  I  have  been  at  to  arrive  where  I 
am.  My  sword  I  give  to  him  that  shall  succeed  me 
in  my  pilgrimage,  and  my  courage  and  skill  to  him 
that  can  get  it.  My  marks  and  scars  I  carry  with  me, 
to  be  a  witness  for  me  that  I  have  fought  His  battles 
who  now  will  be  my  rewarder." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


(R.  stands  for  the  subject  of  the  biog 
raphy.) 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  54. 
Adams,  Henry,  quoted,  on  Hay,  173;  let 
ters  of  Hay  to,  156,  229. 
Adams,  John,  333. 
Addams,  Jane,  374,  375- 
Africa,  R.'s    big-game-hunting  expedition 

to,  3i9/- 
Alabama,  The,  4. 
Alaska,  boundary  of,  I74/-,  201. 
Albany  Evening  Journal,  400. 
Aldrich,  Chester  H.,  351. 
Aldrich,  Nelson  W.,  132,  194,  310,  339, 

340. 
Algeciras,  Conference  of,  suggested  by  R., 

202,  228. 
Alger,  Russell  A.,  Secretary  of  War,  offers 

R.  a  commission,  122;  123. 
Allen,  Henry  J.,  368. 
Allison,  William^.,  310,  311. 
Alpha  Delta  Phi  Fraternity,  20,  21. 
Alsace-Lorraine,  410. 
Alverstone,  Richard  Webster,  Baron,  175, 

177. 

"America  the  Unready,"  130. 
American  Defense  Society,  449. 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History, 

391- 
Americans,   the    "spread-eagle"   variety 

of,  1 20. 

Amos,  James,  449. 
Ananias  Club,  204,  209. 
Andrews,  Judge  (New  York),  144, 145. 
Anti-Imperialists,  170,  171,  173,  189. 
Army,    R.'s    orders    concerning    forced 

marches  of,  264,  265. 
Arthur,  Chester  A.,  276. 
Austria,  402. 
Aylesworth,  A.  B.,  175. 
Azan,  Paul,  quoted,  on  Gen.  Wood,  438  n. 

Bacon,  Robert,  446. 
Bad  Lands,  58. 

Baker,   Newton  D.,   Secretary  of  War, 
43i,  432;  declines  R.'s  offer  to  raise  vol 


unteers,  432,  433  and  «.;  his  "banal 
utterances,"  438,  439. 

Balfour,  Arthur  J.,  debt  of  the  U.S.  to, 
218;  175,442. 

Ballinger,  Richard  A.,  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  his  controversy  with  Pinchot, 
335;  investigated  and  exonerated,  336. 

Barnard,  F.  A.  P.,  30. 

Barnes,  William,  Jr.,  sues  R.  for  libel,  399, 
and  is  beaten,  400, 401 ;  362, 363, 384. 

Bass,  Robert  P.,  351,  354. 

Bayard,  Thomas  F.,  293. 

Belgium,  402. 

Bell,  J.  F.,  General,  U.S.A.,  264. 

Benton,  Thomas  Hart,  76,  294. 

Berger,  Victor,  441. 

Bernstorff,  Count  Johann,  German  Am 
bassador  to  U.S.,  his  pernicious  activity, 
405;  and  the  Lusitania,  409,  411;  418, 
427. 

Bethmann-Hollweg,  Herr  von,  German 
Chancellor,  418. 

Beveridge,  Albert  J.,  Chairman  of  the  Pro 
gressive  Convention  of  1912,  373;  238, 
3",  379- 

"Big  Business,"  influence  and  power  of, 
J37»  138.  And  see  Interests,  the. 

"Big  Stick,  the,"  202,  288. 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von,  165. 

Black,  Frank  S.,  136,  137. 

Black,  William  T.,  30. 

"Black-Horse  Cavalry,"  40,  41. 

Blackmail  in  N.Y.  Police  Dept.,  98,  99, 
102,  103. 

Elaine,  James  G.,  unsuccessful  candidate 
for  Republican  nomination  in  1880,  47; 
his  character  and  political  methods,  48; 
nothing  of  his  lives  after  him,  48, 49;  his 
nomination  in  1884  splits  the  party, 
50/.;  supported  by  R.,  52  /.,  defeated, 
55  ;7i,387. 

Bliss,  George,  41. 

"Bloody  Shirt,  the,"  48. 

Boon,  Daniel,  75,  76. 

Boston,  alarm  in,  at  approach  of  hostilities 
with  Spain,  119;  R.'s  opinion  of,  119. 

Boston  Herald,  440  n. 


460 


INDEX 


Boswell,  James,  89. 

Boutros  Pasha,  320. 

Bowen,  Herbert  W.,  220. 

Brazil,  and  the  River  of  Doubt,  391  f. 

Brownsville  (Texas),  shot  up  by  negro 
troops,  296,  297. 

Bryan,  William  J.,  renominated  for  Presi 
dent  in  1900,  150,  151;  again  defeated, 
152;  his  third  candidacy  (1908),  315; 
348,  409,  4i8,  419- 

Bryce,  James  [Viscount],  quoted,  on  R., 

157. 

Buenz,  Herr,  222. 

Buffalo,  McKinley  assassinated  at,  154. 

Bullard,  Willard,  30. 

Bulloch,  Irvine,  4,  284. 

Bulloch,  James,  4,  5,  205,  284. 

Bulloch,  Martha,  R.'s  mother.  See  Roose 
velt,  Mrs.  Martha. 

Billow,  Prince  von,  German  Chancellor, 
and  the  Moroccan  dispute,  228,  229. 

Bunau-Varilla,  Philippe,  and  the  Panama 
revolution,  185. 

Bunyan,  John,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  79, 455. 

Burke,  Edmund,  80. 

Cambridge  (England)  University,  gives  R. 
honorary  degree,  327, 329;  R.'s.  address 
at,  328. 

Campaign  contributions  from  corpora 
tions,  act  prohibiting,  232. 

Canada,  relations  between  U.S.  and,  I74/ • 

Cannon,  Joseph  G.,  310,  343,  344,  348. 

Capital,  and  Labor,  opening  of  gulf  be 
tween,  163/164;  antagonism  between,  in 
U.S.,  i66Jf.,  233;  arrogance  of,  166;  R.'s 
attitude  toward,  212;  its  abuse  of  R., 
213.  And  see  Interests,  the. 

Carey,  Joseph  M.,  351. 

Carow,  Edith  Kermit,  marries  R.,  71 ;  10. 
See  Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Edith  Carow. 

Cattle  thieves  in  the  West,  64-66. 

Cavour,  Count  Camillo,  38,  296,  353,  435, 
436. 

Cervera,  Admiral  de,  181. 

Chaffee,  Adna,  U.S.A.,  274. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  175,  176. 

Cherrie,  George  K.,  394. 

Chichester,  Captain  R.  N.,  218. 

Child  Labor  in  District  of  Columbia,  act 
prohibiting,  231. 

China,  the  Open  Door  in,  229. 

Choate,  Joseph  H.,  30,  31,  107,  108. 


Christ  Church,  Cambridge,  R.  teaches  in 
Sunday  School  of,  22. 

Cigar-makers,  living  conditions  of,  in  N.Y., 
42,  43;  R.'s  bill  for  benefit  of,  declared 
unconstitutional  by  Court  of  Appeals, 
42,  43- 

Civil  Service  in  N.Y.,  R.  and,  137. 

Civil  Service  Commission  appointed  by 
President  Harrison,  89,  90;  R.  directs 
policy  of,  90  JF.;  attacked  by  Grosvenor 
and  Gorman,  91-95;  tribulations  of,  95, 
96. 

Civil  Service  Law,  how  enforced  by  R., 
91 /• 

Civil  Service  Reform,  why  imperative, 
85  /.;  under  Cleveland,  89;  under  R. 
as  Commissioner,  90  jf. 

Civil  War,  the,  economic  effects  of,  162. 

Class  antagonism,  menace  of,  233. 

Classified  Civil  Service,  extension  of,  by 
R.,  96. 

Clayton,  Powell,  49. 

Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  178,  182. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  Governor  of  New  York, 
39;  nominated  by  Democrats  for  Presi 
dent  in  1884,  50;  supported  by  ''Mug- 
mumps,"  51,  54;  elected,  55,  56;  and 
Civil  Service  Reform,  89;  reappoints  R. 
on  Commission,  96;  bis  second  election, 
96;  his  Venezuela  message  and  its  effect, 
115,  172, 191;  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
172;  131,  204,  207,  208,  214,  215,  217, 
309,  310,  313- 

Coal-mine  operators.  See  Coal  strike  of 
1902. 

Coal-miners.  See  Coal  strike  of  1902. 

Coal  strike  of  1902,  settled  by  R.,  245;  R. 
quoted  on  settlement  of,  246,  247;  effect 
of  his  action,  247,  248. 

Colombia,  United  States  of,  and  the  Hay- 
Herran  treaty,  182  jf.;  blackmailing 
methods  of,  183,  184;  and  the  revolu 
tion  in  Panama,  i86/.;  change  of  atti 
tude  of,  1 86,  187;  German  influence  in, 
against  Hay-Herran  treaty,  225. 

Commerce  and  Labor,  Department  of, 
231- 

Congress,  important  acts  passed  by,  dur 
ing  R.'s  presidency,  231,  232;  and  the 
Navy,  287.  And  see  United  States 
Senate. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  89. 

Conservation,  R.'s  achievement  in,  236  f.; 


INDEX 


461 


the  Ballinger-Pinchot  controversy,  335, 

336. 

Consular  service,  reformation  of,  232. 
Cooper,  J.  Fenimore,  8. 
Corporations,  taxation  of,  in  New  York, 

137,  f. 

Corporations,  Bureau  of,  231. 
Corruption  in  New  York  State,  attacked 

byR.,34Jf- 

Corse,  John  M.,  97. 

Cortelyou,  George  B.,  154, 307. 

Costello,  Michael,  40. 

Courts,  R.'s  attitude  toward,  385,  386. 
And  see  Judicial  Recall. 

Cowles,  William  S.,  U.S.N.,  277. 

Cowles,  Mrs.  William  S.,  R.'s  sister,  277. 

Crane,  W.  Murray,  362,  363. 

Croker,  Richard,  102,  131. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  76. 

Cromwell,  William  Nelson,  185. 

Cuba,  insurrection  in,  115;  American 
sympathy  for,  115,  116;  becomes  a  re 
public,  170.  And  see  Havana,  and  Span 
ish  War. 

Cullom,  Shelby  M.,  276. 

Curtis,  George  William,  leader  of  the  Mug- 
mumps  in  1884,  54;  quoted,  on  R.'s 
course,  55. 

Curzon,  George  Nathaniel,  Earl,  328,  329. 

Cutler,  Arthur  H.,  13. 

Czolgosz,  Leon,  murders  McKinley,  154. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  50,  51, 107,  108. 

Darwin,  Charles,  38. 

Davies,  Henry  E.,  30. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  80. 

Democracy,  progress  of,  159  jf.;  R.  the 
chief  interpreter  of  the  highest  type  of 
American,  249. 

Democratic  Party,  nominates  Cleveland 
in  1884,  50. 

Democratic  platform  of  1912,  382. 

Democrats,  control  House  of  Represen 
tatives  in  62d  Congress,  343;  and  the 
Progressive  platform  of  1912,  375,  376. 

Derby,  Mrs.  Ethel,  R.'s  daughter,  448. 

Derby,  Richard,  R.'s  son-in-law,  441. 

Dewey,  George,  U.S.N.,  R.'s  instructions 
to,  at  Hong  Kong,  121;  destroys  Span 
ish  fleet  in  Manila  Bay,  121;  and  Ad 
miral  von  Diederichs,  218;  221,  222, 

"Dickey,"  the,  19. 

Diederichs,  Admiral  von,  218. 


Dixon,  Joseph  M.,  378. 
Douglas,  Mr.,  44,  45. 
Dow,  Wilmot,  17,  58,  65,  83. 
Dunbar,  Charles  F.,  293. 
Dwight,  Theodore  W.,  30. 

Edmunds,  George  F.,  49. 

Edward  VII,  R.  special  envoy  at  funeral 

of,  325,  326. 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  72. 
Egypt,  Nationalist    Party  in,  320;    R.'s 

speech  on  affairs  in,  at  London,  327, 328. 
Elective  system  at  Harvard,  14. 
Eliot,  Charles  W.,  reforms  instituted  by, 

as  President  of  Harvard,  14, 15;  108, 293. 
Elkhorn  Ranch,  R.'s  life  at,  59,  60,  256, 

258. 

Elkins  Anti-Rebate  Act,  231. 
Emergency  Currency  Act,  232. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  25. 
Employers'  Liability  Act,  231. 
England,  and  Cleveland's  Venezuela  mes 
sage,  115;  R.'s  visit  to,  325  ff.;  German 

propaganda  against,  in  U.S.,  406. 
Equality,    distinction   between    political, 

and  social  and  industrial,  164, 165. 
Europe,    R.'s    triumphal   tour    through, 

320  J. 
Evans,   Robley    D.,    U.S.N.,    commands 

Great  Fleet  on  voyage  round  the  world, 

287,  288. 

Fairbanks,  Charles  W.,  323,  327. 

Family,  the,  R.  an  upholder  of,  280. 

Fish,  Mrs.  Hamilton,  9. 

Forbes,  W.  Cameron,  appointed  Governor- 
General  of  Philippines  by  R.,  173. 

Ford,  Henry,  419. 

Fosdick,  Frederick,  369. 

France,  and  Germany,  in  Morocco,  227; 
402. 

Franchise  tax  bill  (N.Y.),  137-139. 

Francis  Joseph,  Emperor,  324. 

Frankfurter,  Felix,  letter  of  R.  to,  440, 441. 

Frederick  the  Great,  410. 

Frick,  Henry  C.,  239. 

Free  Silver  issue,  in  campaign  of  1900, 150, 
151;  McKinley's  attitude  toward,  170. 

French  (Panama)  Canal  Co.,  suspends 
work,  179;  sells  out  to  the  U.S.,  182  /.; 
and  the  revolution  in  Panama,  184  Jf.; 
190. 

French  Revolution,  160. 


462 


INDEX 


Garfield,  James  A.,  nominated  for  Presi 
dent  in  1880, 47. 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  124,  321,  436. 

Garrison,  Lindley  M.,  Secretary  of  War, 
resigns,  430;  Gen.  Wood  reprimanded 
by,  431- 

Gary,  Elbert  H.,  239. 

George,  Henry,  nominated  for  Mayor  of 
New  York  by  United  Labor  Party,  69, 
70,  71 ;  Progress  and  Poverty,  70. 

German  Fleet,  expansion  of,  228. 

German  propaganda  in  the  U.S.,  216,  217, 
224, 405,  406,  409,  411,  414,  415. 

Germany,  phantasm  of  political  liberty  in, 
165,  166;  and  the  Panama  Canal,  189; 
relations  of  U.S.  with,  216  jf.;  influence 
of,  in  inducing  Colombia  to  reject  Hay- 
Herran  treaty,  225;  vetoes  limitation 
of  armaments  at  Hague  Conference 
of  1907,  287;  menace  of,  291;  and  the 
Great  War,  402  jf.;  her  conspirators  in 
the  U.S.,  405,  406;  attitude  of  Wilson 
administration  toward,  criticised,  410  jf. 
And  see  Hay,  John,  Holleben,  Panama 
Canal,  William  II,  and  Wilson,  Wood- 
row. 

Gilbert,  J.  T.,  46  n. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  5, 205. 

Glasscock,  William  E.,  351. 

Godkin,  Edwin  L.,  and  R.'s  resignation 
as  Police  Commissioner,  105,  106;  a 
great  power  for  good,  despite  his  critical 
habit,  106, 107;  and  C.  A.  Dana,  108. 

Gorman,  Arthur  P.,  agent  of  the  Interests 
in  the  Senate,  93;  attacks  Civil  Service 
Commission,  93-95;  194. 

Goudy,  Henry,  329. 

Gould,  Jay,  34,  41. 

Grandfathers'  Law,  the,  282. 

Grant,  Robert,  351, 352, 354. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  attempt  to  nominate 
for  a  third  term  in  1880,  47;  12,  207,  321. 

Great  Britain.  See  Alaska,  England,  and 
Panama  Canal. 

Great  Fleet,  the,  voyage  of,  round  the 
world,  286 /. 

Great  Northern  R.R.,  197. 

Great  War,  the,  402  ff. 

Griggs,  John  W.,  169  n, 

Grosvenor,  Charles  H.,  the  "Gentle  Shep 
herd  of  Ohio,"  and  the  Civil  Service 
Commission,  91,  92. 

Guild,  Curtis,  97,  151, 152. 


Hadley,  Herbert  S.,  351, 365, 366, 372, 373. 

Hagedorn,  Hermann,  The  Boys'  Life  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  9. 

Hague  Conference  (1907)  fails  to  agree 
on  limitation  of  armaments,  297. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  19. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  291,  293. 

Hanks,  Charles  S.,  22,  23. 

Hanks,  John,  386. 

Hanna,  Marcus  A.,  R.  and,  305;  candi 
date  for  Republican  nomination  in  1904, 
306;  death,  307;  148. 

Harriman,  Edward  H.,  the  railroad  czar 
of  the  U.S.,  234;  251,  308. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  elected  President  in 
1888,  84;  appoints  R.  Civil  Service 
Commissioner,  84,  89;  his  other  ap 
pointees,  89, 90;  97,  256, 300. 

Harvard  Advocate,  R.  editor  of,  19. 

Harvard  College,  in  R.'s  time,  14  Jf.;  stand 
ard  of  scholarship,  16. 

Harvard  Crimson,  annual  dinner  of,  19, 20. 

Harvard  Gymnasium,  R.'s  boxing  match 
in,  22,  23. 

Hasty  Pudding  Club,  19. 

Havana,  treatment  of  Americans  at,  in 
1897,  117;  U.S.  battleship  sent  to,  117; 
destruction  of  U.S.S.  Maine  in  harbor 
of,  and  its  effect,  117,  118. 

Hawaiian  Islands,  172. 

Hay,  John,  as  Secretary  of  State,  173, 174; 
Henry  Adams  quoted  on,  173;  and  the 
Senate,  174, 180;  relations  of,  with  diplo 
matic  corps,  174;  and  the  Hay-Paunce- 
fote  treaties,  179^".;  wishes  to  resign,  180; 
letter  of  R.  to,  180,  181;  negotiates  sec 
ond  Panama  treaty,  182;  negotiates 
Hay-Herran  treaty,  i82jf.;  not  consulted 
as  to  Panama  revolution,  187;  his  death 
not  caused  by  remorse,  188;  and  the 
Open  Door  in  China,  229;  113, 142, 210, 
220, 307, 314.  Letters  of,  to  Henry  White, 
148,  149;  R.,  150;  Henry  Adams,  156, 
229;  Lady  Jeune,  156. 

Hay-Herran  treaty,  182  /.;  German  in 
fluence  in  inducing  Colombia  to  reject, 
225. 

Hay-Pauncefote  treaty,  first,  amended  by 
Senate,  fails,  180;  second,  182. 

Haywood,  William  D.,  accused  of  murder 
of  Gov.  Steunenberg  of  Idaho,  250,  251; 
acquitted,  251;  leader  of  I.W.W.,  251. 

Hearst,  William  R.,  441. 


INDEX 


463 


Henry,  Prince,  of  Prussia,  his  visit  to  the 
U.S.,  and  its  failure,  223,  224. 

Hepburn  Act  (Interstate  Commerce 
Amendment),  231. 

Herran,  Tomas,  Dr.,  and  the  Hay-Herran 
treaty,  182, 183;  186, 187,  189. 

Hess,  Jacob,  Republican  "boss"  of  the 
2ist  New  York  District,  28,  29,  30,  32, 
33- 

Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  elected  Mayor  of  New 
York,  69,  70,  71. 

Hill,  David  B.,  Democratic  "boss"  of 
New  York  State,  102,  131. 

Hill,  James  J.,  234. 

Hillquit,  Morris,  441. 

Hinman,  Harvey  D.,  399. 

Hobart,  Garrett,  Vice-President,  144. 

Holleben,  Dr.  von,  and  the  Kaiser's  Vene 
zuela  scheme,  221,  222;  made  a  scape 
goat,  222-224;  2I°- 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  Jr.,  letter  of  R. 
to,  on  Alaskan  boundary,  176, 177. 

Hughes,  Charles  E.,  his  fight  for  primary 
elections,  336;  nominated  for  President 
by  Republicans  in  1916,  423;  supported 
by  R.,  423, 424;  defeated,  425. 

I.W.W.,  rise  of,  251,  252;  denounced  by 
R.,  441. 

Immigration  into  U.S.,  effect  of,  on  wages, 
161,  162;  antagonism  between  Labor 
and  Capital  largely  due  to,  163,  164; 
growth  of  Anarchism  and  Nihilism  due 
to,  164. 

Immigration,  Bureau  of,  231. 

Imperialism  in  the  Republican  platform 
of  1900,  150;  meaning  of,  170;  opposing 
views  concerning,  170,  171;  R.  among 
those  who  accepted  it,  171;  his  theory 
set  forth,  171, 172. 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  48. 

Initiative,  the,  345,  352,  376,  387. 

Insurgent  Republicans,  first  appearance 
of,  312;  increasingly  important  part 
played  by,  342;  rebel  against  Cannon 
dictatorship,  and  defeat  him,  343;  novel 
political  instruments  proposed  by,  345; 
La  Follette  leader  of,  348;  majority  of, 
desire  R.'s  nomination  in  1912,  349, 
350,  351.  And  see  Progressive  Party. 

"Interests,  the,"  growth  of,  195  JF.;  R.'s 
attitude  toward,  199;  stories  about  R. 
circulated  by,  203,  204;  necessity  of 


controlling,  232,  233;  and  the  financial 
upheaval  of  1907,  239;  383,  386,  399. 

Internationalism,  rise  of,  161. 

Interstate  Commerce  Act,  197,  231. 

Ireland,  John,  Archbishop,  and  the  Car- 
dinalate,  298  jf. 

Irish,  in  U.S.,  German  attempts  to  se 
duce,  224. 

Iron  Ore,  libel  on  R.  published  in,  397. 

Italy,  and  the  Kaiser's  Venezuela  scheme, 
219,  220. 

Ivins,  William  M.,  400, 401. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  86,  207. 

Japan,  German  attempts  to  cause  trouble 
between  U.S.  and,  224,  225;  war  with 
Russia,  225-227;  R.'s  attitude  toward, 
226; 202, 288. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  334. 

Jeffries,  James,  271. 

Jesup,  Morris  K.,  30. 

Jette,  Sir  A.  L.,  175. 

Jeune,  Lady  Francis,  letter  of  Hay  to,  156. 

Jew-baiting,  attempted  in  New  York,  104, 
105. 

Jews,  massacre  of,  in  Kishineff,  229,  230; 
protests  of,  in  U.S.,  229, 230. 

Jiu-jitsu,  270,  271. 

Joffre,  Joseph,  Marshal,  442. 

Johnson,  Hiram  W.,  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  with  R.  in  1912, 375;  369, 371. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  89. 

Jordan,  David  S.,  419. 

Judicial  Recall,  misnamed  "Recall  of 
Judges,"  345;  prevents  R.'s  nomination 
in  1912,  376;  attitude  of  public  toward, 

376, 377;  387- 

Jusserand,  Jules,  dispatch  of,  quoted,  on 

R.'s  personality,  262,  263. 
Justice,  R.'s  love  of,  242,  243,  253,  345, 

346. 

Kansas  City  Star,  440. 

Kearsarge,  the,  4. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  Jungle  Books,  7;  375. 

Kishineff,  massacre  of  Jews  at,  229,  230. 

Klondike,  discovery  of  gold  in,  174. 

Knox,  Philander  C.,  169  n, 

Ku-Klux  Klan,  281. 

Labor,  American,  largely  composed  of 
foreigners  163 ;  and  Capital,  antagonism 
between,  163, 164,  i66Jf.,  233;  R.'s  atti- 


INDEX 


tude  toward,  212,  242  jf.  And  see  Coal 
strike  of  1902. 

La  Follette,  Robert  M.,  leader  of  Pro 
gressives,  348;  candidate  for  nomina 
tion  for  President  in  1912,  349;  350, 
441- 

Lambert,  Alexander,  398. 

Las  Guasimas.  skirmish  at,  125. 

Lee,  Alice  Hathaway,  engaged  to  R., 
24;  marries  R.,  31.  See  Roosevelt,  Mrs. 
Alice  H. 

Lee,  George  C.,  24. 

Lesseps,  Count  Ferdinand  de,  179. 

Leupp,  Francis  E.,  The  Man  Roosevelt 
quoted,  188,  189,  284. 

Lewis,  Edwin  H.,  315, 370. 

Liability  of  government  to  employees,  act 
establishing,  231. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  1, 2, 38,68, 80,  no,  142, 
151,  192,  194,  206,  207,  213,  231,  273, 
284,329,346,386,451. 

Liquor,  illegal  sales  of,  in  New  York.  See 
Minors,  and  New  York  City  Police  Dept. 

Livingstone,  David,  Travels,  6. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  supposed  influence 
of,  in  determining  R.'s  course  in  1884, 
54,  55;  49, 143>  180,  354,  406. 

Loeb,  William,  155,  276. 

London,  City  of,  freedom  of,  bestowed  on 

R.,327- 

Long,  John  D.,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  his 
character,  113;  contrast  between  R.  and, 
113,  114; 116, 121. 

Lusitania,  sinking  of,  405,  407  jf.,  428. 

Lyman,  Charles,  89,  90. 

Lynch,  John  R.,  49. 

McAllister,  Ward,  327. 

McGovern,!  Francis  E.,  365. 

McKee,  Baby,  300. 

McKinley,  William,  appoints  R.  Assistant 
Secretary  of  Navy,  105;  and  Cuba,  116; 
renominated  and  reflected,  150,  152; 
shot  by  Czolgosz,  154;  death,  155;  R. 
promises  to  continue  his  policies,  155, 
169;  his  Cabinet  retained  by  R.,  169 
and  n.',  his  character,  169,  170;  his  atti 
tude  toward  free  silver,  170;  119,  128, 
148,  149,  175,  180,  210,  211,  216,  254, 
268,  304,  305,  306.  And  see  Hay,  John, 
and  Spanish  War. 

McMullen,  Professor,  7. 

MacVeagh,  Wayne,  186,  187. 


Madison,  James,  334. 

Maine,  U.S.  battleship,  blown  up  in  Ha 
vana  Harbor,  117, 118. 

Manila,  German  ships  at,  218. 

Manila  Bay,  battle  of,  121. 

Marroquin,  President  of  Colombia,  187. 

Marshall,  Thomas  R.,  450. 

Meadowbrook  Hunt,  57. 

Meat  Inspection  Act,  231,  238,  311. 

Medora.     See  Elkhorn  Ranch. 

Merit  System  in  the  Civil  Service,  88,  89. 

Merry  del  Val,  Cardinal,  and  R.'s  visit 
to  Rome,  322,  323. 

Metropolitan  Magazine,  R.'s  articles  in, 
418  jf.,  440. 

Mexico,  German  propaganda  in,  224;  397. 

Meyer,  George  von  L.,  226. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  293,  295. 

Minckwitz,  Herr,  13. 

Minors,  unlawful  sale  of  liquors  to,  in  New 
York,  how  dealt  with  by  R.,  111-113. 

Mitchell,  Edward,  30. 

Mitchell,  John,  243. 

Monetary  Commission,  232. 

Monroe  Doctrine,  and  Cleveland's  Vene 
zuela  Message,  172;  R.'s  view  of,  172; 
and  the  Panama  Canal,  181;  217,  224, 
227. 

Montauk  Point,  129. 

Mores,  Marquis  de,  61,  62. 

Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  197,  234,  235. 

Morgan,  William  F.,  30. 

Morley,  John  [Viscount],  266. 

Morocco,  trouble  between  France  and  Ger 
many  over,  202,  227,  228. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  76. 

Morton,  Levi  P.,  Vice-President,  144. 

Moyer,  ,  accused  of  murder  of 

Governor  Steunenberg,  250,  251;  ac 
quitted,  251. 

"Mugwumps,"  name  given  by  C.  A.  Dana 
to  anti-Blaine  Republicans,  51;  their  in 
fluence  in  the  election  of  1884,  54. 

Munitions  of  war,  sale  of,  to  Allies,  415. 

Murray,  Joseph,  ex-Tammanyite,  and  R ., 
29,  32,  33- 

Napoleon  I,  38, 160. 
Nation,  The,  105. 
Nationality,  Spirit  of,  161. 
Natural  History  Society  at  Harvard,  19. 
Naturalization  of  aliens,  undiscriminating, 
163. 


INDEX 


465 


Navy  of  the  United  States,  in  the  War  of 
1812,  74;  after  the  Civil  War,  114;  re 
construction  of,  pushed  by  R.,  114,  im 
portance  of,  in  view  of  Cuban  affairs, 
in  1897,  115,  116;  functions  of,  in 
Spanish  War,  120,  121;  its  prestige  frit 
tered  away  after  R.'s  term  ended,  290. 
And  see  Great  Fleet,  the. 

Navy  Department,  activity  in,  after  de 
struction  of  the  Maine,  118. 

Negro  question,  the,  281  Jf. 

Negro  suffrage,  281,  285. 

Negroes,  R.'s  attitude  toward,  282.  And 
see  Washington,  Booker  T. 

Newell,  F.  H.,  and  R.'s  conservation 
policy,  236,  238. 

Newett,  George  A.,  sued  by  R.  for  libel, 
397-399;  withdraws  charges  of  drunken 
ness,  etc.,  398. 

Newspaper  men,  R.'s  relations  with,  272, 
300. 

New  York  Assembly,  R.'s  candidacy  for, 
26  Jf.;  his  sponsors,  30;  R.'s  service  in, 
34  Jf.;  R.'s  second  term  in,  39  Jf.;  his 
third  term,  41  Jf.;  and  the  Franchise 
Tax  bill,  138,  139. 

New  York  City,  R.  on  political  conditions 
in,  33 ;  Sunday  sales  of  liquor  in,  stopped 
by  R.,  102,  103;  welcomes  R.  on  his 
return  from  his  African  Expedition, 
300. 

New  York  City  Police  Department,  in 
vestigation  of,  40,  41;  workings  of,  de 
scribed,  98,  99;  under  R.,  100  Jf. 

New  York  Elevated  Railway,  40. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  105,  107,  143. 

New  York  State,  dominated  by  bosses, 
131;  R.'s  campaign  and  election  as 
governor,  135;  his  administration,  137  JF., 
146,  147.  And  see  Platt,  Thomas  C. 

New  York  Sun,  50,  107,  144. 

New  York  Times,  411. 

New  York  Tribune,  51,  52,  133. 

Nicholas  II,  Czar,  urged  by  R.  to  make 
peace  with  Japan,  226, 227;  and  the  mas 
sacre  of  Jews  in  Kishineff,  229,  230; 
letter  of  R.  to,  230;  202. 

Nile,  the,  ornithology  of,  13. 

Nobel  Peace  Prize,  given  to  R.,  227;  203, 
324- 

North,  S.  N.  D.,  letter  of  R.  to,  44. 

North  Dakota,  R.  buys  ranches  in,  58. 

Northern  Pacific  R.R.,  197. 


Northern  Securities  Case,  decision  of  U.S. 

Supreme  Court  in,  197. 
Northern  Securities  Co.,  197. 

0.  K.  Society,  19. 

Odell,  Benjamin  B.,  277. 

Ogg,  Frederic  A.,  National  Progress,  1907- 

1917,  quoted,  23 5. 
O'Leary,  Jeremiah,  425. 
Olney,  Richard,  180,  191. 
O'Neil,  William,  37,  40. 
Open  Door,  the,  229. 
Oregon,  U.S.  battleship,  178. 
Osborn,  Chase  S.,  351. 
Osborn,  Henry  Fairfield,  329,  391. 
Our  Young  Folks,  8. 

Outlook,  The,  R.'s  articles  in,  404,  418  JF. 
Oxford,  gives  R.  honorary  degree,  327;  R. 

delivers  Romanes  Lecture  at,  328,  329. 
Oyster  Bay,  72,  255.    And  see  Sagamore 

Hill. 

Packard,  Edwin,  46  n. 

Panama,  revolution  in,  185. 

Panama  Republic  proclaimed  and  recog 
nized  by  U.S.,  185,  186;  grants  U.S. 
right  to  construct  a  canal,  etc.,  186. 

Panama  Canal,  and  the  Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty,  178;  necessity  of,  178,  179; 
French  attempt  to  construct,  179;  R. 
on,  181;  strip  of  territory  for  construc 
tion  of,  leased  to  U.S.,  186;  probable 
result  of  completion  of,  291;  288. 

Pan-Germanism,  228. 

Parker,  Alton  B.,  Democratic  candidate 
for  President  in  1904,  attacks  R.,  307, 
308. 

Partridge,  Colonel,  136. 

Party,  R.'s  belief  in  fealty  to,  S3,  387; 
R.'s  view  of  party  organization,  304. 

Pauncefote,  Sir  Julian  [Baron],  and  the 
Hay-Pauncefote  treaties,  179  Jf. 

Payne,  Henry  W.,  appointed  Postmaster- 
General  by  R.,  169  n. 

Payne,  Sereno  E.,  339,  340. 

Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Act,  character  of, 
339.  34O,  341 ;  extolled  by  Taft  in  Win- 
ona  speech,  340,  341;  public  dissatis 
faction  with,  344;  295,  376. 

Pearson,  Mr.,  Postmaster  of  New  York,  97. 

Phi  Beta  Kappa,  R.  a  member  of,  23. 

Philippines,  Spanish  fleet  at,  in  1898,  120, 
121 ;  status  of,  170;  R.'s  views  as  to  our 


466 


INDEX 


duty  concerning,  171, 172;  Forbes,  Gov 
ernor-General  of,  173;  189,  274.  And  see 
Manila  Bay. 

Pinchot,  Gifford,  and  R.'s  conservation 
policy,  235,  236;  and  Ballinger,  335, 336. 

Pius  X,  Pope,  322,  323. 

Platt,  Thomas  C,  Republican  boss  of 
New  York,  131, 132, 133  and  «.;  opposed 
to  R.'s  candidacy  for  governor,  133, 134; 
R.'s  attitude  toward,  134;  Consents  to 
R.'s  nomination,  135;  difference  with  R. 
over  State  offices,  135,  136;  and  R.'s 
attitude  toward  corporations,  138,  139; 
R.  never  his  "man,"  139, 140, 142;  R.'s 
"breakfasts"  with  him  discussed,  139, 
140;  and  R.'s  appointee  as  Superin 
tendent  of  Insurance,  140-142;  letters 
of  R.  to,  143-146;  wishes  to  be  rid  of 
R.  as  governor,  147;  decides  to  shelve 
him  in  office  of  Vice-President,  147, 148, 
and  succeeds,  149,  150;  208,  277,  303. 

Platt,  OrvilleH.,  310,  311. 

Plattsburg  camps,  407,  436. 

Plutocracy  in  the  U.S.,  193, 194, 195, 3°!, 
302. 

Porcellian  Club,  19. 

Porto  Rico,  status  of,  170. 

Pound,  James  H.,  398. 

Presidential  campaign,  of  1876,  18,  19;  of 
1904,  306  Jf.;  of  1912,  377-382;  of  1916, 
43Xjf. 

Primaries,  direct,  and  the  Republican  Con 
vention  of  1912,  356,  357. 

Progressive  Party  (name  adopted  by  In 
surgent  Republicans),  La  Follette  leader 
of,  348;  majority  of,  desire  R.'s  nomina 
tion  in  1912,  349,  350,  351;  at  the  Na 
tional  Convention,  359  jf.;  many  dele 
gates  of,  refuse  to  ballot  for  candidates, 
369;  released  from  party  obligation  by 
nomination  of  Taft,  371;  action  of,  after 
nominations,  371,  372;  holds  convention 
in  August,  373  jf.;  nominates  R.,  374; 
the  platform,  375,  376;  many  of  the 
planks  since  made  into  law  by  Demo 
crats,  375,  376,  396;  ceases  to  be  a  real 
power  in  politics,  396;  R.  nominated  by, 
in  1916,  but  declines,  423.  And  see  In 
surgent  Republicans,  Republican  Party. 

Protection  Tariff,  R.'s  attitude  on,  293  jf. 

Public  Lands  R.'s  work  in  reclaiming  and 
conserving,  236-238. 

Pure  Food  Act,  231. 


Putnam,  G.  P.  's  Sons,  32. 
Putnam,  George  Haven,  32. 
Putnam,  Rufus  P.,  92. 

Quay,  Matthew  S.,  his  reputation,  131, 
!32»  133  and  n.;  connives  at  Platt's 
scheme  to  nominate  R.  for  Vice-Presi 
dent,  149;  R.  reconciled  to,  304, 305. 

Quigg,  Lemuel,  and  R.'s  candidacy  for 
governor  of  New  York,  133, 134, 135. 

Railroads,  reasons  for  legislative  control 
of,  233,  234;  war  for  monopoly  of,  and 
the  near  panic  of  1901,  234,  235;  laws 
regulating  rates  and  rebates,  235. 

Rampolla,  Cardinal,  299. 

Recall  of  Judges.    See  Judicial  Recall. 

Reconstruction,  285. 

Referendum,  the,  345, 352, 376, 387. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  325. 

Republican  Machine,  R.'s  relations  with, 
after  he  became  president  "  in  his  own 
right,"  309  jf.;  accepts  R.'s  choice  of 
Taft  as  his  successor,  314,  315;  Taft's 
standing  with,  341,  342.  And  see  Platt, 
Thomas  C. 

Republican  National  Committee,  R.  a 
member  of,  in  1884, 43;  and  the  Conven 
tion  of  1912,  358;  controlled  by  Regu 
lars,  366. 

Republican  National  Convention  (/poo), 
nominates  R.  for  Vice-President,  149; 
(1904)  nominates  R.  for  President, 
307;  (1912),  356  jf.;  Southern  delegates 
largely  pledged  to  Taft,  356;  delegates 
from  Northern,  Western,  and  Pacific 
States,  largely  for  R.,  356;  great  number 
of  contesting  delegates,  357;  sessions  of, 
357-371;  R-  on  the  outskirts  of,  359  Jf.; 
action  of  Credentials  Committee  a 
shameless  theft,  367;  nominates  Taft, 
367;  R.'s  message  to,  368. 

Republican  Party,  history  of,  since  the 
Civil  War,  46,  47;  in  the  presidential 
election  of  1876,  47;  nominates  Garfield 
in  1880,  47,  and  Elaine  in  1884,  47-50; 
split  by  nomination  of  Blaine,  49,  50;  R. 
adheres  to,  52  jf.;  character  of,  in  R.'s 
day,  193,  194;  upholder  of  privilege, 
193;  the  story  of  R.'s  conflict  with,  331 
Jf.;  split  between  Regulars  and  Insur 
gents,  335  jf.;  difficulties  of,  in  1912, 
349  Jf-5  in  the  South,  356;  Insurgents  re- 


INDEX 


467 


leased  from  obligation  to,  by  renomina- 
tion  of  Taft,  371;  split  by  Taft  faction, 
not  by  R.,  382,  383, 422;  Regulars  abuse 
R->  384,  385;  R.  used  it  as  long  as  he 
could,  386;  the  party  of  the  plutocrats 
who  controlled  the  Interests,  386;  seeks 
to  destroy  R.  as  a  political  factor,  399; 
declines  him  as  a  candidate  in  1916,  421, 
422;  nominates  Hughes,  422,  423. 

Restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  161. 

Reyes,  Rafael,  186,  187,  188. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  quoted,  on  R.,  273, 
274;  285,  286,  301,  302. 

Riis,  Jacob,  R.'s  companion  on  his  tours  of 
inspection  as  Police  Commissioner,  103, 
104;  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,  104;  on 
R.'s  administration  as  governor,  137; 
Theodore  Roosevelt;  the  Citizen,  quoted, 
35, 70, 138, 139, 266. 

River  of  Doubt,  81,  82, 391  Jf. 

Rixey,  Surgeon-General  of  U.S.,  265. 

Robinson,  Mrs.  Corinne  (Roosevelt),  7, 
277,  278,  331,  389- 

Robinson,  Douglas,  10  n. 

Rock  Creek,  261. 

Romanes  Lecture  at  Oxford,  delivered  by 
R.,  328. 

Rome,  R.'s  visit  to,  322-324. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Alice  (Lee),  death,  44, 
58- 

Roosevelt,  Archibald,  441,  442. 

Roosevelt,  Corinne,  9,  10  and  n.,  And  see 
Robinson,  Mrs.  Corinne  (Roosevelt). 

Roosevelt,  Cornelius  Van  Schaack,  R.'s 
grandfather,  3. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Edith  Carow,  ancestry, 
71,  72;  256,  257,  258,  259,  260,  270,  283, 
288, 300, 320, 330, 359, 361, 379, 449. 

Roosevelt,  Elliott,  5. 

Roosevelt,  Ethel,  R.'s  daughter,  320.  And 
see  Derby,  Mrs.  Ethel. 

Roosevelt,  Kermit,  R.'s  son,  accompanies 
R.  on  his  African  journey,  319  /.,  and 
on  his  Brazilian  trip,  391,  394;  marries 
Miss  Willard,  395;  258,  441,  442. 

Roosevelt,  Klaes  Martensen  van,  2. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Martha  (Bulloch).  R.'s 
mother,  an  unreconstructed  Southerner, 
4;  death  43, 58 ;  5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 

Roosevelt,  Quentin,  R.'s  son,  killed  in  air- 
battle,  442;  441,  447. 

Roosevelt,  Robert,  5,  31. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Robert,  6. 


Roosevelt,  Theodore,  R.'s  father,  his  char 
acter,  3;  R.'s  tribute  to,  3,  4;  appointed 
Commissioner  to  Vienna  Exposition, 
12;  death,  24,25;  5,  7, 9,  n. 

ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE.  — 

I.  Early  Years.  —  Contrast   between 
his  origin,  training,  etc.,  and  Lincoln's, 
I,  2;  his  paternal  ancestry,  2,  3;  his  trib 
ute  to  his  father,  3,  4;  his  mother  an  un 
reconstructed  Southerner,  4;  her  broth 
ers,  4,  5;  effect  of   his  joint  Northern 
and  Southern  ancestry  on  his  non-sec 
tional  Americanism,  5;  birth  and  boy 
hood,  5  jf.;  learns  early  to  read,  6;  sense 
of  humor,  6;  fondness  for  pets,  6,  7;  a 
sickly  child,  7;  an  omnivorous  reader,  8; 
early  taste  for  natural  history,  8,  9,  12; 
visit  to  Europe,  9,  10;  extracts  from  his 
diary,  9,   10;  takes  up  gymnastics  to 
counteract  his  asthmatic  habit,  n,  12; 
''Roosevelt  Museum  of   Natural  His 
tory,"  12;  again  abroad:  Algiers  and  the 
Nile,  12, 13;  in  Vienna  and  Dresden,  13; 
prepares  for  Harvard  under  A.  H.  Cut 
ler,  13;  steadily  improving  health,  13, 14; 
devoted  to  athletics,  14;  enters  Harvard 
in  1876, 14;  the  College  in  his  day,  14-16; 
his  college  course,  16  /.;  in  the  Maine 
Woods,  17;  his  devotion  to  Harvard,  17; 
athletic  and  social  life,  18,  19;  editor  of 
the  Advocate,  19;  his  maiden  speech,  20; 
his  ambition  to  help  the  cause  of  good 
government,    21;    teaches    in    Sunday 
School,  22;  his  boxing-match  with  Hanks, 
22,  23 ;  his  rank  at  graduation,  23 ;  mem 
ber  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  23;  a  happy 
combination  of  the  amateurish  and  the 
intense,  24;  his  father's  death,  24,  25; 
engaged  to  Miss  Lee,  24;  married   to 
her,  32. 

II.  From  Assemblyman  to  Police  Com 
missioner.  —  Possessed  of  a  competence, 
25,  26;  decides  to  enter  politics,  26;  his 
candidacy  for  the  New  York  Assembly, 
26  f.;  elected  to  2ist  District  Repub 
lican  Club,  27,  28;  a  "good  mixer,"  28; 
and  "Boss"  Hess,  28;  relations  with 
Murray,   ex-Tammanyite,  29;  his  ap 
peals  to  the  voters,  29,  30;  his  sponsors, 
30,  31;  his  law-studies,  31,  32;  runs  the 
gauntlet  of  the  saloon-keepers,  32,  33; 
his  purpose  in  going  into  politics,  33, 34; 
the  greatest  idealist  in  American  public 


468 


INDEX 


life  since  Lincoln,  34;  attacks  corruption 
in  New  York  34;  demands  impeachment 
of  Judge  Westbrook,  35, 36;  his  business, 
to  uphold  Right,  36;  his  name  becomes 
known,  37;  works  with  Billy  O'Neil,  37, 
38;  renominated  for  Assembly,  38;  his 
justifiable  pride  in  his  first  year's  re 
cord,  38;  reflected,  39;  his  second  ses 
sion,  39-41;  his  associates,  40;  fights 
Black-Horse  Cavalry,  40,  41 ;  encounter 
with  George  Bliss,  41 ;  his  third  term,  41- 
43;  bill  for  relief  of  cigar-makers,  de 
clared  unconstitutional,  42,  43;  declines 
a  fourth  term,  43 ;  deaths  of  mother  and 
wife,  44;  delegate  to  National  Conven 
tion  of  1884,  46,  50;  embodies  the  glo 
rious  promise  of  the  new  generation,  47; 
opposed  to  nomination  of  Elaine,  49; 
favors  Edmunds,  49;  supports  Blaine, 
52-55;  his  belief  that  party  transcends 
persons,  53,  54,  387;  his  decision  formed 
independently,  54,  55;  takes  a  vigorous 
part  in  the  campaign,  55;  a  wonderful 
example  of  the  partnership  of  mind  and 
body,  56,  57;  great  physical  strength,  57; 
fishing  and  hunting,  58;  decides  to  go 
West,  58;  buys  ranches  in  the  Bad  Lands 
in  No.  Dakota,  58;  his  life  at  Elkhorn 
Ranch,  59  jf.,  256;  intercourse  with  law 
less  nomads,  60,  61;  and  the  Marquis  de 
Mores,  61,  62;  experiences  with  "bad 
men,"  62-64,  and  with  cattle- thieves,  64; 
acting  deputy  sheriff,  65,  66;  his  bodily 
frame  equal  to  the  demands  of  his  physical 
courage,  66;  not  pugnacious,  67;  results 
of  his  ranch-life,  68;  acquires  a  national 
point  of  view,  68;  nominated  by  Inde 
pendents  for  Mayor  of  New  York,  69, 70 ; 
his  letter  of  acceptance,  70;  defeated, 
71;  marries  Miss  Carow  in  London,  72, 
256;  settles  on  Sagamore  Hill  estate,  at 
Oyster  Bay,  72,  256;  devotes  himself  to 
literature,  73  f.]  could  do  nothing  com 
monplace,  73;  as  a  historian,  74,  75;  his 
portrait  of  Daniel  Boon,  75;  his  many 
books  on  ranch-life  and  hunting,  77;  his 
collected  essays  and  addresses,  77;  ig 
nored  by  professional  critics,  77,  78; 
quality  of  his  writings,  78^.;  his  "catch 
ing"  phrases  and  similes,  79;  the  purist 
may  criticise,  79;  characteristics  of  his 
political  essays,  80,  81 ;  feels  the  charm 
of  beauty,  81;  his  holidays,  83,  84;  sup 


ports  Harrison  in  1888,  84;  appointed 
Civil  Service  Commissioner  by  him,  84, 
89;  the  Republican  Machine  glad  to 
have  him  shelved,  84,  85;  his  colleagues, 
89,  90;  shapes  the  policy  of  the  Com 
mission,  90;  enforces  Civil  Service  Law 
rigorously,  91;  encounters  with  Gros- 
venor  and  Gorman,  90-95;  urges  exten 
sion  of  classified  service,  96;  reappointed 
by  Cleveland,  96,  97;  appointed  Presi 
dent  of  Board  of  Police  Commissioners 
of  New  York  City,  98;  sets  out  to  reform 
the  prevailing  system  of  corruption  and 
blackmail,  100,  101;  enforces  the  laws, 
101;  closes  saloons  on  Sundays,  102, 103; 
his  visits  of  inspection,  103,  104;  and 
Ahlwardt,  the  Jew-baiter,  104,  105;  re 
signs  to  become  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  under  John  D.  Long,  105; 
feeling  in  New  York  concerning  his  resig 
nation,  105,  1 06;  physical  and  mental 
condition  in  1897,  109,  no;  effect  of  his 
training  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
no,  and  as  Police  Commissioner,  in; 
takes  the  law  into  his  own  hands  to 
check  sale  of  liquor  to  minors,  in,  112; 
his  tendency  to  follow  short  cuts  to 
justice,  113. 

III.  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  and 
Rough  Rider.  —  Contrast  between  Sec 
retary  Long  and,  113, 114;  his  knowledge 
of  the  Navy  and  interest  in  its  problems, 
114;  pushes  construction  of  the  new  navy, 
114,  116;  his  premonition  of  a  crisis, 
115;  Cleveland's  Venezuela  message, 
115;  the  insurrection  in  Cuba,  115,  116; 
secures  appropriation  for  target  practice, 
116;  welcomes  approach  of  war,  and 
why,  118,  119;  his  opinion  of  Boston, 
119;  his  gospel  of  military  and  naval 
preparedness,  120;  his  dispatch  to 
Dewey  at  Hong  Kong,  121;  his  status  in 
the  Navy  Department,  121;  decides  to 
take  part  in  the  war,  122;  declines  offer 
of  a  commission  in  the  army,  122;  with 
Leonard  Wood  raises  First  Regiment  of 
Volunteer  Cavalry  (Rough  Riders),  and 
becomes  lieutenant-colonel,  122  jf.;  the 
volunteers  bound  together  by  devotion 
to  him,  123;  becomes  colonel,  126;  at 
San  Juan  Hill,  126;  life  in  the  trenches, 
126;  his  letter  to  Gen.  Shafter,  127,  128; 
the  "Round  Robin,"  and  its  effect  at 


INDEX 


469 


home,  128, 129;  at  Montauk  Point,  129; 
lessons  of  the  war  as  seen  by,  130. 

IV.  Governor  and   Vice-President.— 
His  great  popularity,  131 ;  his  candidacy 
for   governor,    first   opposed   then   ac 
cepted  by  Platt,  133-135;  his  vigorous 
campaign,   135;  elected,  135;  his  first 
encounter  with    Platt,    135,   136;  his 
administration      described      by     Riis, 
137;  Factory  law  and  law  regulating 
sweat-shops,    enforced,    137;    struggle 
over   law  to    tax  public-franchise  cor 
porations,    i37Jf.;    and    the     profes 
sional  critics,  139;  not  Platt's  "man," 
139, 140;  his  breakfasts  with  Platt,  139, 
140;  and  the  office  of  Superintendent 
of  Insurance,  140-142;  how  far  he  co 
operated  with  the  Machine,  142;  on  the 
proposal   to   nominate   him   for    Vice- 
presidency,    143,    144;    desires    Judge 
Andrews  to  succeed  him  as  governor, 
144-146;  "I  am  an  organization  Repub 
lican  of  a  very  strong  type,"  144;  views 
of,  as  to  the  attitude  of  officials  toward 
the  "  organization,"  145,  146;  his  inde 
pendence  and  achievement  of  reforms 
increase  his  popularity,  146,  147;  Platt 
and  the  Machine  decide  to  shelve  him  in 
the  office  of  Vice-President,  147,  149; 
is  averse  to  the  plan,  147,  148;  states 
publicly  that  he  is  not  a  candidate,  149; 
but  is  nominated,  149;  in  the  campaign, 
151;   presides    over   the   Senate,    152; 
thinks  of  pursuing  his  law  studies,  153; 
succeeds  to  the  Presidency  on  the  death 
of  McKinley,  155. 

V.  President.  —  Takes   the   oath   of 
office  at  Buffalo,  155;  promises  to  con 
tinue     McKinley 's    policies,   155,   169- 
retains  McKinley 's  Cabinet,  156,  169; 
the   hope   of   American   politics,    157; 
what  sort  of  a  world  he  confronted,  158- 
168;  the  doctrine  of  Imperialism,  ac 
cepted  by,  170, 171;  his  view  of  our  duty 
to  the  Filipinos,  171,  172;   his  view  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  various  aspects, 
172,  181;    what  Imperialism  meant  to 
him,  172;  convinced  that  the  U.S.  must 
abandon  policy  of  isolation,  172;  ap 
points  W.  C.  Forbes  Governor-General 
of  Philippines,  173;  and  the  Alaskan 
Boundary  dispute,  175  jf.;  appoints  new 
High  Commission,  175;  his  views  on  the 


subject,  176,  177;  gains  a  favorable  de 
cision  by  a  "short  cut,"  177,  178;  the 
Panama  Canal  question,  178  $.\  ob 
jects  to  first  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty, 
180,  181;  and  the  revolution  in 
Panama,  185;  recognizes  Panama  Re 
public,  185  jf.;  varying  views  of  the 
Panama  episode,  188-190;  a  champion  of 
liberty,  192;  his  Republicanism,  193; 
his  attitude  toward  plutocracy  and  privi 
lege,  193, 194;  relies  on  justice  and  com 
mon  sense,  194;  suggests  need  of  legis 
lation  to  resist  encroachments  by  cap 
italists,  198;  urges  conservation  of  na 
tional  resources,  198;  general  nature 
of  his  reforms,  198;  warfare  with  the 
Interests,  199,  200;  combativeness  his 
dominant  trait,  201;  not  truculent  or 
pugnacious,  201;  repels  attempts  of 
William  II.  to  gain  a  foothold  on  this 
continent,  202;  shines  as  a  peacemaker, 
202,  203;  persuades  Russian  Czar  to 
make  peace  with  Japan,  202,  226;  sug 
gests  Conference  of  Algeciras  to  settle 
Moroccan  dispute,  202,  228;  the  "Big 
Stick,"  202,  288;  stories  about  him  cir 
culated  by  the  Interests,  203,  204;  the 
Ananias  Club,  204,  209;  how  far  the 
charge  of  being  ambitious  is  true,  206  Jf.; 
his  habit  of  speaking  and  writing  can 
didly,  209,  210,  211 ;  not  liable  to  accusa 
tion  of  mendacity,  210, 211;  and  the  con 
flict  between  Labor  and  Capital,  212, 
213;  the  "square  deal,"  213,  215;  two 
contrasted  views  of,  213;  remodels  the 
White  House,  215,  275;  blocks  the 
Kaiser's  Venezuelan  scheme,  219-224; 
threatens  war,  if  Kaiser  will  not  arbi 
trate  his  claims,  against  Venezuela, 
221, 222;  his  share  in  bringing  about  peace 
between  Russia  and  Japan,  226,  227; 
Nobel  Peace  Prize  awarded  to,  227; 
watches  conditions  in  Germany,  228; 
and  the  massacre  of  Jews  at  Kishineff, 
229,  230;  important  laws  passed  by  Con 
gress  during  his  administration,  231, 
232;  and  the  railroads,  233-235;  orders 
suit  against  Standard  Oil  Co.  for  re 
ceiving  rebates,  235;  his  greatest  work  in 
the  fields  of  reclamation  and  conserva 
tion,  236  f.;  advised  by  Pinchot,  Newell, 
Beveridge,  and  others,  238;  and  the  Ten 
nessee  Coal  and  Iron  Co.  episode,  239, 


INDEX 


240;  result  of  his  battle  for  conservation, 
240, 241 ;  his  dealings  with  Labor,  242  f.; 
settles  the  coal  strike  of  1902  by  extra- 
legal  means,  243-247;  both  sincere  and 
wise,  247,  248;  moral  of  his  settlement 
of  the  coal  strike,  justice  for  all,  248, 
249;  the  greatest  of  modern  democrats, 
249;  the  strike  of  the  Western  Federation 
of  Miners,  and  the  murder  of  Governor 
Steunenberg,  250,  251;  undesirable  citi 
zens,  251 ;  his  belief  injustice  and  Equal 
ity  as  realities,  253. 

His  various  homes  between  1884  and 
1889,  256;  life  in  Washington  as  Civil 
Service  Commissioner,  256,  257;  re 
turns  to  Sagamore  Hill,  257;  his  life 
there,  257-259,  261,  271;  relations  with 
his  children,  258;  his  life  in  Washington, 
from  1901,  259  ff.;  the  "Tennis  Cabi 
net,"  260,  261;  "hiking,"  261,  262;  M. 
Jusserand  quoted,  concerning,  262,  263 ; 
his  order  regarding  forced  marches  for 
troops,  264,265;  dinners  at  the  White 
House,  265,  266;  John  Morley  on,  266; 
his  family  relations,  267,  268;  the  hours 
of  toil,  268,  269;  his  devotion  to  physi 
cal  exercise,  270,  271;  loses  sight  of  one 
eye  while  boxing,  271;  relations  with 
newspaper  men,  272,  300;  the  great 
paradox  of  his  character,  272,  273;  his 
reverence  for  the  great  men  of  the  past, 
273;  his  method  of  coping  with  his  work, 
275;  reorganizes  White  House  service, 
275,  276;  always  mindful  of  the  dignity 
of;his  office,  277;  an  upholder  of  the  Fam 
ily,  280. 

Attitude  toward  the  negro,  282;  the 
Booker  Washington  incident,  282-285; 
harshly  criticised  in  the  South,  283;  the 
voyage  of  the  Great  Fleet,  286-290;  his 
efforts  to  increase  the  strength  of  the 
Navy,  287;  purpose  and  result  of  the 
voyage,  288-290;  his  attitude  toward 
war,  discussed,  290  f.;  his  views  and 
action  on  the  tariff  unsatisfactory,  293- 
295;  the  tariff  a  question  of  expediency, 
295;  colored  troops  at  Brownsville  (Tex 
as),  296,  297;  never  forgot  the  Oneness  of 
Society,  301 :  in  what  sense  he  was  a  pol 
itician,  303 ;  his  belief  in  the  necessity  of 
party  organization,  304;  wins  approval 
of  Quay,  304,  305;  nominated  in  1904, 
307 ;  and  Judge  Parker's  attack,  307, 


308;  elected  by  huge  majority,  308;  his 
declaration  as  to  a  third  term,  and  what 
it  meant,  308, 309;President  "inhisown 
right,"  309;  first  indications  of  the  strug 
gle  to  come,  309$.;  the  Machine  and  the 
Interests,  310,  311;  his  followers  styled 
"Insurgents,"  312;  policy  of  the  "Regu 
lars"  toward,  313;  selects  Taft  as  his 
successor,  314;  and  the  Republican 
National  Committee,  315;  his  expecta 
tions  as  to  Taft's  Cabinet  disappointed, 
316;  leaves  Washington,  317. 

VI.  Travels.—  The  Canvass  of  IQI2.  — 
His  African  expedition,  318-320;  his  ad 
dress  in  Cairo,  320;  triumphal  tour  of 
Europe,  320  Jf.;  why  he  did  not  call  on 
the  Pope,  322-324;  in  Vienna  and  Bu 
dapest,  324;  address  at  Christiania,  on 
universal  peace,  324;  entertained  by  the 
Kaiser  in  Berlin,  324;  his  impression  of 
the  Kaiser,  325,  326;  in  Paris,  325;  his 
reception  in  England,  325  /.;  special 
envoy  at  funeral  of  Edward  VII,  325; 
honors  bestowed  on  him  by  the  City  and 
the  universities,  327;  his  address  on 
Egypt,  327,  328;  delivers  Romanes  Lec 
ture,  at  Oxford,  328;  his  return  to  New 
York,  330,  331. 

His  "policies"  abandoned  by  the  Re 
publicans  during  his  absence,  332,  337 
jff.,  347;  his  mistake  in  attempting  to 
establish  a  presidential  dynasty,  333, 
334;  urged  by  his  followers  to  "unfurl 
his  flag  "  against  the  administration, 
336;  is  attracted  by  the  principles  ac 
tuating  the  Progressive  Movement,  345 ; 
his  Ossawatomie  speech  on  the  "New 
Nationalism"  (1910),  346,  347;  Lincoln 
would  have  approved  the  measures  ad 
vocated  in  that  speech,  346;  becomes  the 
centre  of  attention,  347;  resents  the 
abandonment  of  his  policies,  347,  348; 
relations  with  Taft,  347;  declines  to  run 
for  President,  348;  his  zealous  friends 
urge  him  to  reconsider,  349,  350;  action 
of  the  seven  governors,  351;  conversa 
tion  with  Judge  Grant  and  the  author, 
351-355;  announces  his  candidacy,  355; 
the  canvass  for  delegates,  356,  357;  the 
Convention  of  1912, 357^".;  goes  to  Chi 
cago  and  assumes  direction  of  his  forces, 
359  Jf-J  his  reception,  360;  his  activities 
during  the  Convention,  361,  364;  his 


INDEX 


471 


message  to  the  Convention,  repudiat 
ing  its  action,  368;  his  speech  at  the 
meeting  of  his  supporters,  371, 372;  nom 
inated  by  Progressive  Convention  in 
August,  373-375;  effect  of  the  pro 
posed  Judicial  Recall  on  his  vote,  376, 
377;  his  activity  in  the  campaign,  378  jf.; 
shot  by  Schranck,  378,  379;  defeated, 
381,  382;  who  split  the  Republican 
Party?  382,  383,  422;  personal  attacks 
on,  384;  his  action  in  entering  the  field 
justified,  385  jf.\  his  acceptance  of  de 
feat,  389;  the  South  American  journey 
and  the  River  of  Doubt,  390 /.;  effect  of 
the  hardships  of  the  journey  on  his 
physique,  394;  visits  Madrid  for  his 
son's  marriage,  395;  disappointed  by  the 
waning  of  the  Progressive  Party,  396;  his 
libel  suit  against  Newett,  397-399;  sued 
by  Barnes  for  libel,  399-401 . 

VII.  The  Great  War.  —  Last  years.  At 
first  approves  neutrality  of  U.S.,  404; 
his  change  of  view,  406;  the  three  tasks 
that  he  set  himself,  407;  what  he  would 
have  done,  had  he  been  President  in 
May,  1915,  410,  411;  charges  President 
Wilson  with  ultimate  responsibility  for 
many  things,  416;  angered  by  Wilson's 
contradictory  utterances,  417;  his  arti 
cles  in  the  Outlook  and  Metropolitan 
Magazine,  quoted,  418-420;  nominated 
by  Progressives  in  1916,  but  finally  de 
clines  to  run,  and  supports  Hughes,  421- 
423,  424;  his  continued  criticism  of  Wil 
son,  426,  428,  441;  his  speech  at  Platts- 
burg  causes  Wood  to  be  reprimanded, 
43i»  437;  his  sentiments  as  to  our  enter 
ing  the  war,  432;  offers  to  raise  a  divi 
sion  of  volunteers,  432;  his  offer  declined, 
433  and  «.;  after  passage  of  draft  law, 
renews  his  offer,  which  is  again  declined, 
433;  charged  with  self-seeking,  434; 
what  the  effect  would  have  been  of  send 
ing  him  to  France,  435;  the  President's 
reason  for  refusing  to  employ  him,  435, 
436;  resents  treatment  of  Wood,  435, 
437.  438;  criticises  Secretary  Baker, 
439;  his  articles  in  the  Metropolitan  and 
Kansas  City  Star,  440;  his  efforts  to  se 
cure  a  commission,  etc.,  the  immediate 
cause  of  sending  any  troops  to  France, 
442;  his  last  years  not  an  anticlimax, 
443;  his  whole  career  considered,  444  Jf.; 


his  the  one  voice  in  the  U.S.  that  could 
not  be  silenced,  445;  his  demands,  one 
by  one,  reluctantly  adopted  by  Wilson, 
445,  446;  his  later  relations  with  Repub 
lican  regulars,  446,  447;  he  never  re 
covered  from  the  malarial  fever  with 
which  he  became  infected  in  Brazil, 
447;  death  of  Quentin,  447,  448;  his  last 
public  speech,  448;  death  and  funeral, 
at  Sagamore  Hill,  449,  450;  concluding 
reflections,  451-454. 

VIII.  Writings.  —  Letters.  His  Auto 
biography  quoted,  5,  17,  33,  34,  134, 
236,  252;  History  of  the  War  of  1812, 
32,  74,  114;  Winning  of  the  West,  74; 
Thomas  H.  Benton,  76,  294;  Gouverneur 
Morris,  76;  Oliver  Cromwell,  76;  Through 
the  Brazilian  Wilderness,  82;  The 
Rough  Riders,  125.  Letters  to  Felix 
Frankfurter,  440,  441;  John  Hay,  180; 
Oliver  W.  Holmes,  175;  S.  N.  D.  North, 
44;  Thomas  C.  Platt,  143-146;  General 
Shatter,  127;  William  R.  Thayer,  424; 
Charles  G.  Washburn,  31. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  Jr.,  R.'s  son,  441, 
442. 

Roosevelt  family,  in  the  U.S.,  2. 

Roosevelt  Museum  of  Natural  History,  12. 

Root,  Elihu,  Secretary  of  State,  R.'s  high 
opinion  of,  314;  why  less  eligible  than 
TaftasR.'s  successor,  314;  Chairman  of 
Republican  Convention  of  1912, 365. 366, 
369,  370;  30,  31, 145, 149, 155, 175, 176, 
367,  401,  446,  447- 

Rosewater,  Victor,  365. 

Rough  Riders,  at  Chicago,  in  1912,  360; 
at  R.'s  funeral,  449,  450.  And  see  Volun 
teer  Cavalry,  First  Regiment  of. 

"Round  Robin,"  the,  128. 

Rousseau,  Jean-Jacques,  159, 160. 

Russia,  Kaiser's  attitude  toward,  in  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  225;  collapse  of,  in  1916, 
427. 

Russo-Japanese  War,  225-227;  R.'s  share 
in  peace  negotiations,  226,  227. 

Ryan,  Dr.  379. 

Safety  Appliance  Act,  231 . 

Sagamore  Hill,  R.'s  estate  at  Oyster  Bay, 
72,  73;  life  at,  255,  256,  257,  258,  259, 
261, 267, 271 ;  R.'s  death  at,  449. 

Salisbury,  Robert  Cecil,  Marquis  of,  and 
the  Panama  Canal,  182. 


472 


INDEX 


Saloon-keepers  of  2ist  District,  R.  runs 
the  gauntlet  of,  32, 33. 

San  Juan  Hill,  battle  of,  126. 

Santiago,  surrender  of,  126. 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  35. 

Schranck,  John,  R.  shot  by,  378. 

Schurz,  Carl,  54. 

Selous,  Frederick  C.,  319. 

Serbia,  402. 

Sewall,  William,  R.'s  guide  in  the  Maine 
Woods,  1 7,  58, 65, 83,  265. 

Shafter,  William  R.,  U.S.A.,  R.'s  letter  to, 
127,  128;  calls  council  of  war,  128;  and 
the  Round  Robin,  129. 

Shakespeare,  William,  38. 

Shepard,  Elliott  F.,  30. 

Sherman,  James  S.,  371. 

Shultz,  Jackson  S.,  30. 

Sigsbee,  Charles  D.,  U.S.N.,  117. 

Single  Tax,  the,  70. 

Slavery,  progress  of  Democracy  not  ar 
rested  by,  160;  and  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  161,  162. 

Smith,  Charles  E.,  169  n. 

Smithsonian  Institution,  319. 

Social  Justice,  R.'s  life-long  goal,  345, 346. 

Social  Revolution,  the,  161  Jj. 

Sorbonne,  the,  323. 

South,  the,  stirred  by  R.'s  entertainment  of 
Booker  Washington,  283,  284;  R.'s  at 
titude  toward,  284,  285,  286. 

South  America,  R.'s  expedition  to,  390  f. 

Spaniards,  in  Cuba,  115,  116;  and  Ameri 
can  residents  at  Havana,  117. 

Spanish  War  of  1898,  121  /.,  150,  178, 
217,  286,  287. 

Speaker  of  New  York  Assembly,  138,  139. 

Spoils  System,  the,  86 /. 

Spring-Rice,  Sir  Cecil,  71,  228. 

"  Square  Deal,"  a,  213,  243  ff. 

"Stand-Patters,"  312, 313.  And  see  Repub 
lican  Party. 

Standard  Oil  Co.,  R.  orders  suit  against, 
for  accepting  rebates,  235, 383. 

Steunenberg,  Governor,  of  Idaho,  mur 
der  of,  250. 

Strong,  William  B.,  elected  Mayor  of  New 
York,  97;  appoints  R.  President  of 
Board  of  •  Police  Commissioners,  97; 
330. 

Stubbs,  Governor,  of  Kansas,  351. 

Sullivan,  John  L.,  R.  invited  to  be  a  pall 
bearer  at  his  funeral,  271. 


Taft,  William  H.,  Secretary  of  War, 
chosen  by  R.  as  his  successor,  314  /.; 
elected  President,  315;  the  first  rift  in 
the  lute,  316;  his  Cabinet  made  up  of 
new  men,  316,  335;  fails  to  come  up  to 
R.'s  expectations,  333  /. ;  his  desire  to  be 
independent,  334;  the  Ballinger-Pin- 
chot  controversy,  335,  336;  and  the 
Trusts,  337,  383;  his  sincerity  in  fight 
ing  monopolies  suspected,  337,  338;  and 
the  Republican  plank  on  the  tariff,  339, 
340;  signs  Payne- Aldrich  bill,  340;  his 
Winona  (Minn.)  speech,  340,  341 ;  public 
opinion  of  his  action,  340,  341;  sup 
ported  by  Republican  machine,  341, 342 ; 
attitude  of  Insurgents  toward,  343, 
344;  his  policies  resented  by  R.,  347; 
personal  relations  with  R.,  348;  the  log 
ical  candidate  of  Conservatives  in  1912, 
349;  and  the  delegates  to  the  Conven 
tion,  357;  renominated,  367,  371;  in 
active  in  campaign,  380;  defeated,  381, 
382;  Republican  Party  split  by  him, 
not  by  R.,  382, 383, 422;  R.  charged  with 
ingratitude  to,  385;  254,  318,  325.  And 
see  Republican  National  Convention 
of  1912. 

Tammany  Hall,  69,  102. 

Tardieu,  Andre,  262. 

Tariff,  Republican  platform  of  1908  on, 
338,  339»  supposed  to  call  for  revision 
downward,  339;  Payne-Aldrich  bill  signed 
by  Taft,  339,  340. 

"Teddy's  Terrors,"  125. 

Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Co.,  R.  assents 
to  proposal  of  Gary  and  Frick  to  pur 
chase  control  of,  239, 240. 

Tennis  Cabinet,  the,  261,  270. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  78. 

Thayer,  William  R.,  personal  reminiscences 
of  R.  at  Harvard,  19  jf.;  and  R.  in  the 
campaign  of  1884,  51  jf.;  conversation 
with  R.,  in  February,  1912,  351-353; 
letter  of  R.  to,  424;  John  Hay,  quoted, 
150,  156,  176,  177,  229,  307. 

Third  term,  R.'s  declaration  against,  and 
its  meaning,  308,  309. 

Thompson,  Hugh,  90. 

Trusts,  the,  197^".;  the  tariff  and,  294;  at 
titude  of  Taft  administration  toward, 
337.  And  see  Interests. 

Tuckerman,  Gustavus,  30. 

Turner,  George,  175,  176. 


INDEX 


473 


Twenty-first  District  Republican  Associa 
tion  of  New  York  City,  27  ff. 
Twenty-first   District   Republican   Club, 

27 /• 
Tyree,  Mr.,  detective,  361. 

United  Labor  Party,  69,  70. 

United  States,  and  Cuba,  n6/.;  effect  of 
destruction  of  U.S.S.  Maine  in,  117, 
118;  effect  of  "Round  Robin"  in,  128, 
129;  progress  of  Democracy  in,  160, 
161;  economic  conditions  in,  after  Civil 
War,  162,  163;  vast  expansion  of  indus 
try,  162;  unchecked  immigration,  162, 
163;  ceases  to  be  the  "Land  of  Promise," 
163,  164;  antagonism  between  Labor 
and  Capital  in,  163, 164,  i66j?.;  seeds  of 
anarchy  and  Nihilism  planted  by  im 
migrants,  164;  condition  of  working 
classes  in,  167;  relations  with  Canada, 
174  ff.;  neutrality  of,  at  outbreak  of 
Great  War,  402^".;  preparations  for  war 
in,  430  jf.  And  see  Germany,  William  II, 
and  Wilson,  Woodrow. 

United  States  Senate,  a  millionaires'  club, 
87;  R.  presiding  officer  of,  152;  and  Sec 
retary  Hay,  174;  Steering  Committee 
of,  and  R.,  310  ff. 

United  States  Steel  Corporation,  and  the 
Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Co.,  239,  240; 
197- 

Utica  Herald,  44. 

Vanderbilt,  William  H.,  196. 

Vatican,  the,  and  Archbishop  Ireland, 
298,  299. 

Venezuela,  Cleveland's  message  concern 
ing,  115,  172. 

Victor  Emmanuel  II,  322. 

Viscaya,  Spanish  battleship,  120. 

Volunteer  Cavalry,  First  Regiment  of 
("Rough  Riders")  raised  by  Wood  and 
R.,  123;  its  personnel,  123;  exploits  and 
hardships  of,  in  Spanish  War,  125  ff., 
130.  And  see  Rough  Riders. 

Wales,  S.  H.,  30. 

Walker,  Dr.  Mary,  276. 

War,  advent  of,  in  1898,  welcomed  by 
R.,  118;  R.'s  attitude  toward,  in  the  ab 
stract,  290  ff. 

War  Department,  after  destruction  of  the 
Maine,  118;  blunders  and  incompetence 


of,  in  Spanish  War,  126, 127,  129;  and 
the  "Round  Robin,"  128. 

War  of  1812,  74. 

Ward,  Mary  A.  (Mrs.  Humphry),  326. 

Waring,  George  E.,  97,  98. 

Washburn,  Charles  G.,  quoted,  157,  231, 
232,  278,  279;  his  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
43,  156;  letter  of  R.  to,  246;  21,  31. 

Washington  Booker  T.,  spokesman  of  negro 
race,  282;  entertained  by  R.  at  White 
House,  and  the  sequel,  282 /.;  297. 

Washington,  George,  158,  205,  206,  333, 

451- 

Washington,  D.C.,  changes  in,  during 
R.'s  terms,  215,  216;  R.'s  life  in,  while 
Civil  Service  Commissioner,  257.  And 
see  White  House. 

Webb,  W.  H.,  30. 

Webster,  Daniel,  his  Seventh  of  March 
speech,  52. 

West,  the,  R.'s  description  of  life  in,  59, 60. 

Westbrook,  Judge,  R.  demands  impeach 
ment  of,  34,  35,  36;  investigated  and 
whitewashed,  37. 

Western  Federation  of  Miners,  strike  of, 
250,  251;  R.'s  correspondence  with,  251. 

White,  Andrew  D.,  46  w. 

White,  Edward  D.,  153. 

White,  Henry,  letter  of  Hay  to,  148. 

White  House,  remodeled  by  R.,  215,  275; 
R.'s  life  at,  259  ff.;  service  in,  reorganized 
by  R.,  275 ;  orderliness  in,  introduced  by 
R.,  275,  276. 

Whitman,  Charles  S.,  448. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  his  "Ichabod,"  52. 

Wickersham,  George  W.,  and  the  Trusts, 
337,  338,  383- 

Wilcox,  Ansley,  155. 

Willard.  Joseph  E.,  395. 

William  II,  German  Emperor,  his  "mad 
project  of  universal  conquest,"  216; 
machinations  of,  in  U.S.,  216,  217;  and 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,  217;  and  the  Span 
ish  War,  217,  218;  his  real  sentiment  to 
ward  the  U.S.,  218;  and  the  Panama 
Canal,  219  ff.;  the  Venezuelan  scheme, 
219-222;  backs  down  and  consents  to 
arbitrate,  222;  makes  Holleben  a  scape 
goat,  222-224;  his  policy  of  peaceful 
penetration,  224  ff.;  and  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  225,  226;  invites  the  U.S. 
to  interfere  in  Morocco,  227,  228;  R.'s 
view  of  his  designs,  228,  229;  his  plan  to 


474 


INDEX 


cut  up  China,  229;  entertains  R.  at  Ber 
lin,  324,  325;  R.'s  impression  of,  325, 
326;  his  submarine  policy,  429;  202, 210, 
272,299,319,410,414. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  nominated  for  Presi 
dent  by  Democrats  in  1912,  380;  and 
elected,  381,  382;  his  message  of  August 
18,  1914,  criticised,  402,  403;  his  policy 
in  the  early  months  of  the  war  charac 
terized,  404,  405;  R.  exasperated  by 
sins  of  his  administration,  406,  407,  417 
jf.;  his  attitude  toward  the  Lusitania 
horror,  408,  409,  410;  criticism  of  his 
conduct  in  general,  411  f.;  renominated 
and  reflected  in  1916,  424,  425;  further 
criticism  of,  426,  427^428,  435;  his  pa 
tience  at  last  exhausted,  429;  breaks  off 
relations  with  Germany,  430;  his  policy 
of  timidity  and  evasion,  430,  431;  and 
R.'s  offer  to  raise  troops,  433  and  «.,  434, 
435;  R.  responsible  for  his  decision  to 
send  troops  to  France,  442,  443;  follows 


public  opinion  when  he  can,  446;  205, 
206,  385,  396. 

Wine  and  Spirit  Gazette,  102. 

Winona  (Minn.)  Taft's  speech,  at  (1909), 
340,  341- 

Wood,  Leonard,  U.S.A.,  his  history,  122; 
raises  First  Regiment  of  Volunteer  Cav 
alry  in  Spanish  War,  123;  R.  lieutenant- 
colonel  under,  123^".;  promoted  to  brig 
adier-general,  126;  reprimanded  in  con 
nection  with  R.'s  speech  at  Plattsburg, 
43O.  4375  his  treatment  by  the  admin 
istration  resented  by  R.,  436,  437,  438, 
439;  Colonel  Azan  on,  438  «.;  263,  264, 
378,  407,  447. 

"Wood's  Weary  Walkers,"  125. 

Woodbury,  John,  455. 

Woodruff,  Timothy  L.,  362. 

Wright,  Luke  E.,  390. 

Yellow  Peril,  the,  226. 
Yucatan,  transport,  125. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


i60 


SFP  1  1  1979 

REC.  CIR.     AUG  2  2 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


88167 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


